


Things You Never Quite Say, But I Hear

by JobethDalloway



Category: Rizzoli & Isles
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23588731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JobethDalloway/pseuds/JobethDalloway
Summary: No repression, no drama, no internalized homophobia, no angst: Jane and Maura just come to the realization that they should be together."I feel at home with you, Jane. I feel seen and loved and understood. We're so intimate with each other in small, personal ways that it feels like we've been dating for some time. We're just missing the physical part.""We don't have to be."
Relationships: Maura Isles & Jane Rizzoli, Maura Isles/Jane Rizzoli
Comments: 56
Kudos: 321





	1. The Lighthouse

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, all. Basically, being locked down has sent me back to my old coping mechanism: Rizzles. I wouldn't say there's a particularly unique hook to this fic; it's just an excuse to escape into some cozy & sexy times with my ride-or-die ship. It's been implied to me that I'm a grandma for continuing to post on FF, so I'm trying to get back into the Ao3 thing as well!

Maura swore under her breath as she turned the corner onto her street. Either she had left the lights on at her house again, as she was wont to do in periods of stress, or Angela had welcomed herself in to the main house for some reason. That normally didn’t bother Maura at all, and in fact she often liked having the company. But after a grueling days-long conference she had helped to organize which happened to begin shortly after days of extensive prep for a court deposition, all Maura wanted to do was have some good takeout and wine by herself, take a long bath, and go to sleep. 

Or that was what she thought she wanted until she opened the front door and saw Jane sitting at the dining room table, which had been set for two. Jane had stretched her long frame along two chairs (at least sans shoes) and had been scrolling on her phone before Maura came in. She sprang up at once with a smile and a bright greeting.

“What smells so good in here?” Maura asked, taking off her coat. “Did your mother make dinner?”

“Excuse me, I made dinner,” Jane said. “I sent Ma over to Cavanaugh’s for the weekend so she wouldn’t bug you. I hope you realize how much that means I care about you, because trust me, encouraging her to go sleep at her boyfriend’s was not a fun or easy task.”

Maura’s tone had a hint of defensiveness to it that might’ve kept a more tactful person at bay: “I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“No, I was merely anticipating your whim, madam,” Jane said in a posh accent, with a stiff half-bow. When she straightened up, she was glad to see that at least had gotten Maura to smile. “But I am realizing that I probably should’ve asked you before just coming over to set this up. I promise I won’t be offended if you need to just, like, hang by yourself tonight.” 

When it looked like Jane was reaching for her keys on the kitchen island as if to go, Maura impulsively grabbed her arm. “No, no, please stay. Please. It’s been days since we’ve really spent any time together.” 

“Yeah.” Jane shifted to pry Maura’s hand off her arm, but rather than remove it and step away, she held onto it, intertwining their fingers together without a second thought. “Work kinda sucks without you on hand.” 

“Yes, I don’t know how you’d manage without being able to barge into my office to rant about whoever’s bothered you that hour.”

“Oh, I still did that, I just made sure to do it when Pike was out. Really freaked out your techs to see me raving alone in your office. I made a show of things, don’t worry.”

Maura laughed softly, and her eyes turned to the covered pots and pans on the stove. “Did you really make dinner? I was just going to order some food in, but this is so nice...” 

“Yes, I really made it! C’mon, grab a plate and let me serve you up some Angela-approved, Jane-made recipes. Just been keepin’ it warm for ya.” 

She had made gnocchi with pomodoro sauce, grilled vegetables, and bruschetta. It was a little richer meal than Maura would usually make for herself, but something so filling felt really good after the hectic week she’d had. Jane had joked about initially placing the table settings at opposite ends of the long table, but it had seemed too much like seating for an aristocratic couple in a passive-aggressive fight, so she put Maura at the head and herself just to her right. They laughed as they caught each other up on the last few days and shared wine. Maura even amazed herself by joining Jane for a small second helping of the gnocchi.

“Wow! You know, I kinda worried you were just being polite and not wanting to say anything bad about this food. But I take this to mean you liked it okay?” Jane asked, setting Maura’s refilled plate back in front of her. 

“Oh, it’s delicious, Jane, really. It’s just what I needed.”

“Italian food?”

“Sure,” Maura chuckled. “No, I don’t know, it feels like comfort food? And no one’s ever cooked for me before. It’s nice.” 

Jane waited for Maura to recollect something, but she just kept on eating. “What? I mean, my mother’s cooked for you, right?”

“Mm, well, she’s put on those lovely family dinners for your brothers and you and me, yes. But nobody’s ever cooked something just for me. Not even my own mother.”

“No one else you’ve dated has done this for you?”

Maura took a moment to regard Jane, wondering if she realized what she’d just said. “No one else?” she asked, raising an eyebrow and taking a sip of wine. 

Jane still needed a second to register it, and when she did, it didn’t come with overblown you-know-what-I-mean gesticulating that Maura would’ve expected. Jane was much more subdued, leaning back in her chair and calmly taking another bite before responding. “Sorry, I meant, no one you’ve dated?”

“Is that common? I mean, has anyone ever cooked for you, besides your mother?”

“Huh. I guess not.” 

Now that she thought about it, as they continued eating, making this had taken a bit of time and money. Not tons, and it certainly wasn’t as fancy as something else she might’ve tried, but it was more than she usually did for herself and nothing she’d ever even considered doing for someone she’d dated. She was happy to bring food in, or take meals offered by her mother, but she’d never put the effort in to make something for someone else herself. And no one had for her, either, outside of her mother or grandmother. 

As if reading Jane’s mind, Maura asked, “Is this something you’ve done for others before? Have I finally reached some special relationship tier with you that comes with homemade meals?”

That got a quiet laugh out of Jane. “You’re on your own special tier, Maura, because—well, in a lot of ways, but no I’ve never cooked for someone before.” She grinned, folding her arms and testing her luck: “Boy, I sure must like you a lot.”

Maura smiled back. “Well, the feeling is mutual.”

Here they were, back on a familiar precipice that for one reason or another they had always shied away from. They’d both had their reasons, neither ever broaching the subject, but there seemed to be a tacit understanding between them now and it seemed to come out of nowhere. For Maura, it had been the act of opening her front door and just wanting to be alone, and instead finding the only person on Earth who felt like home to her. Time could never pass too slowly when they were together. Once Jane had realized her feelings for Maura were beyond platonic, she hadn’t been sure how to proceed, and she felt stuck for a long time in a ships-passing-in-the-night scenario. The timing never seemed right. But they weren’t ships passing. Maura was the lighthouse, the constant glow in Jane’s life, the only person she was comfortable seeking refuge with. 

And all of a sudden, it had just seemed silly not to say something about it. It didn’t take a traumatic, life-altering incident to come about. Just dinner together, a small and simple thing like so many nights they had already spent in each other’s company, with nothing reigned in going forward. 

“Hey, you’ve got some sauce there,” Jane said, indicating the spot on her face. She reached over with a trembling hand to wipe it off as a romantic gesture, but Maura had been quick and already dabbed the spot with her napkin. Jane leaned back in her seat, trying not to look too awkward after a temporary setback.

Maura seemed to regret her swiftness, but didn’t want to make Jane uncomfortable by belaboring the point. “Well, Jane, that really was wonderful. Thank you so much.” 

Jane’s voice was soft, sincere in a way it usually only got when she was around Maura. “My pleasure.” 

“Let me help you clean up.”

“Uh-uh,” Jane said, getting to her feet when Maura stood up to move to the kitchen. “If I know you, the first thing you’d have done after eating alone tonight would’ve been to take a luxurious bath. You go do that and relax, and I’ll take care of all this. Don’t ask me if I’m sure,” she said, anticipating the question Maura had just opened her mouth to ask. “Because this was already a given when I broke into your house to make you eat my food.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Maura laughed. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

“Ask me after your bath, I’m sure I’ll have thought of some ideas by then,” Jane quipped with a cheesy wink. 

After the evening they’d just had, Maura wasn’t sure how much of that she was supposed to take as a joke. “So you won’t leave before I get out, then?” she asked. 

“Nah, of course not. And don’t rush. Take as long as you want, I’ll be here.” Jane stacked the dishes from the table and picked them up, but en route to the kitchen, stopped to give Maura a kiss on the forehead. “Now git! I’ll wait till I hear the water stop running before I start to get up to my elbows in hot water over here.”

Feeling a bit dazed, Maura retreated to the bathroom where yet another small surprise was waiting for her. There was a bottle of bubble bath Jane had “borrowed” from the guest house, and she had also left several scented candles inside, all of them aromas Maura had mentioned as comforting in the past. She lit two large vanilla-scented ones and started the water. It was a much-needed, very calming experience—but instead of getting out and feeling ready for bed, which a bath usually did for her, she felt rejuvenated. 

She brushed her teeth and was going to rejoin Jane in the kitchen, but lingered for a minute before making her presence known. It wasn’t a conscious choice; she just realized she hadn’t taken the time to really stop and take in Jane that night. 

Jane’s back was to her as she washed dishes at the sink. She was in an old pair of jeans and dark blue plaid top, her hair in a scraggly ponytail and a dish towel slung over her shoulder. This was Jane at her most laid back and comfortable, and though it was when she was dressed up for a court date that the guys at the office would wolf whistle (at their own peril) or Angela would shower compliments on her, it was the casual Jane that Maura found herself most attracted to. Most of Maura’s fantasies were innocent ones that involved resting her head on Jane’s shoulder, cuddling with her on the couch, things that leant themselves better to a casually-dressed, comfortable Jane than a stiff, awkward Jane in a skirt and heels. 

Nothing that followed was planned. Maura liked assessing things and being sure and getting as technical as possible, but it seemed that when it came to Jane, instinct needed to take over. 

“I can’t believe you let me just go unwind while you’ve been cleaning this entire time,” Maura said, walking to the kitchen. “There were only two of us, I didn’t think there would be so much to clean!”

“It’s this damn garlic press,” Jane chuckled, waving it. “I cleaned the stove and then the dishes, because like a dumbass, I picked all the things that aren’t dishwasher-safe.”

“Well, that is,” Maura said, nodding at the press.

Jane laughed. “Oh, right. Sheesh. In it goes!” 

She tossed the garlic press in the dishwasher a little more cavalierly than Maura would’ve preferred, then made quick work of rinsing out the sink. As she did this, Maura put her hand on the small of Jane’s back and thanked her. Jane shifted to dry her hands, then reached for the trash can under the sink to spit out the minty gum she’d been chewing to clear the flavor of their meal. Throughout all this, even as they laughed, Maura kept her hand on Jane’s back. This wasn’t a thoughtless gesture; it was a conscious choice, and Jane felt herself reeling as Maura started to massage the spot.

Jane half-turned to face her, putting her hand on Maura’s shoulder, rubbing the silky texture of her robe. There was a muted smile on her face as she drank in the sight of Maura, looking relaxed and lovely. 

“Hey,” Jane said quietly. 

“Hi. So, did you think of something?” 

“Hm?”

“Before my bath, I rhetorically asked what I was going to do with you. You said you’d have thought of something by the time I got out. Did you, or were you being rhetorical as well?” 

Jane took her time answering. What surprised her most in this moment was how calm she felt. The reassuring look in Maura’s eyes told her everything she needed to know. The fact that Maura’s grip on her back was getting a little tighter told her more. She took a deep breath.

“Okay. First of all, just so you know where my head’s at—if you’re tired and want me out of here, I’m gone. But—”

“Don’t you dare even think about leaving.”

“Okay. Cool,” Jane said with a slow smile. “Because what I was going to say is that I didn’t want to go home, either. But that’s usually what I do because I feel like I have to. We’ll hang out at my place, and I wish you’d you stay. Or I’ll be here, and I’d wish I could stay. Which I guess sometimes we have, like, I even have my own side of the damn bed,” she said with a chuckle. Her smile faded as she went on, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Maura’s gaze. “When I coaxed Ma into going to Cavanaugh’s for the weekend, she… said something.”

Maura was breathless. “What?”

“She said sometimes she felt like you and I were in some weird domestic partnership. She said she’d heard guys joking about it at the café when they thought she was out of earshot. She thought if I put half the effort into meeting a guy that I did into my friendship with you, that I’d be a married mother of four by now.” Saying that out loud she had to laugh a little, but Maura’s smile remained subdued, and Jane realized Maura was waiting for more before she said anything herself. “Ma got a little bent out of shape about it, I mean, what the guys were saying at work. She got all, ‘men don’t understand how close women can be’ and ‘what happened to two women just being friends,’ and…” 

Maura had to interject. “I don’t care what your mother thinks. What do you?” 

“I think you’re my best friend, and nothing’s ever going to change that. Ever. But I also feel like… in a weird way… um, I don’t know. If I tick off all the boxes of what I want from a relationship, like a romantic relationship, I feel like I’ve got all that with you. You’re everything that I want, and it just took me so long to figure that out because I wasn’t expecting to find it with a… with you. I feel like we’ve been dating for months without actually calling it that. Sorry, saying it out loud makes it sound a little…?”

She didn’t even know what, but Maura was already shaking her head. “No, it sounds right. I know exactly what you mean. Everything I could want from a romantic partner is what I already have in you. I think people tend to dramatize relationships because we’re socially conditioned to see romance as this big, transformative force, but I think much more than that it’s about just… loving people where they are, and understanding them.” She shifted her other hand to Jane’s arm, rubbing it gently. “I feel at home with you, Jane. I feel seen and loved and understood. And I agree, we’re so intimate with each other in small, personal ways that it does feel like we’ve been dating for some time. We’re just missing the physical part.”

“We don’t have to be,” Jane whispered. 

The attraction that had gone unspoken for so long was now just out there, floating out in the open, no holds barred. For a moment, both seemed to be struck immobile with the endless possibilities that now stretched before them. At last, Maura shifted closer, moving her arms around Jane’s waist. 

That one, small gesture clicked everything into place. This was like the end of so many of their evenings together, where Jane’s natural impulse had been to wrap Maura in a hug and kiss her goodbye, but she’d always restrained herself. The restraint was, according to Maura, no longer necessary. 

Jane kissed Maura’s forehead for the second time that night, but longer this time. A burning sensation shot from her heart down between her legs as Maura pulled her even closer, and she could feel Maura taking slightly deeper breaths. There was an air of impatience, but not annoyance, in the way Maura’s hands were starting to grip her tighter. Jane tried to maintain the suspense for as long as she could, leaving a trail of soft kisses down Maura’s cheek, to her jaw, to her ear. 

“Do you have any idea how gorgeous you are?” Jane asked, her voice reverent, as if she hadn’t meant to say this thought out loud.

Again, Maura figured it was rhetorical, but again she decided to press. “Objectively, yes, I have some idea,” she said, and her honesty got a quiet laugh out of Jane. “But subjectively, I really want you to tell me what that means to you.”

It wasn’t that Jane was afraid, it was just that she didn’t know how she could possibly sum it all up in a way that wouldn’t be cringey or lame. She left a soft kiss on Maura’s neck. “I think I may be better at showing.” 

“Then show me.” 

The moment after the request was whispered, Jane nestled her lips against Maura’s. The softness was what caught Maura off guard at first, the fact that for an initial second or two it seemed so regular—but then Jane’s grip got a little more firm around her waist and the other hand was all of a sudden getting gently curled into Maura’s hair. Maura gasped into the kiss and after swaying for a moment, stumbled back into the counter. This effectively broke the kiss, giving Jane time to snicker and ask, “did I literally just make your knees buckle?”

Maura barely give herself the time to say “shut up” before pulling Jane in for another kiss. Jokes aside, it did seem to help them both to have something to brace against. As Jane’s hands started to roam, she determined that it didn’t feel like Maura was wearing anything under the robe—at least, not on top. She further tested this theory by sliding one hand down Maura’s side, stopping at her ass. Jane broke off the kiss with a shuddering breath.

“Am I correct in thinking that… you’ve got nothing on beneath this robe at all?” 

Their faces were still close, Maura’s arms around Jane’s shoulders, and she left a long kiss on Jane’s cheek. “You know I sleep in the nude.” 

“Mm-hmm… yeah, that’s right.”

There was silence for a few seconds. Jane was very still except for the hand at Maura’s waist, which was absent-mindedly massaging the spot. “What’re you thinking?” Maura asked.

Jane couldn’t help a quiet laugh. “I’m trying to think of a way to ask if I can spend the night that doesn’t make me sound like a skeeze in light of this information.” 

Maura laughed too, strengthening her hold on Jane and rolling her hips against her leg. “Oh, Jane, your staying here was already a given.” Jane thrust forward slightly, and Maura’s voice hitched into a moan as she whispered, “take me to bed.”


	2. Simple and Plain

_Take me to bed._

Just a quiet, simple invitation, but that was all it took to spike Jane’s temperature up about 500 degrees. What had started as something soft and sensitive had in an instant shot Jane into being more turned on than she ever had in her life. Desperate to showcase the energy now sizzling through her veins, Jane grasped Maura around the waist to lift her up—but all this led to was an uncomfortable few seconds of her hoisting Maura off the ground like a dead weight with Maura just staring down at her. After a few straining moments, Jane put her back down.

“Wait, what was that?” 

“I thought you’d like, put your legs around me? I was…tryna take you to bed,” Jane mumbled. 

The confusion in Maura’s expression vanished at once into a brilliant smile. “Oh! Look who’s being literal for a change, I like it.” 

She hooked one leg up around Jane’s waist, and there came another awkward pause as Jane took hold of it but neither of them did anything else. Some self-conscious laughter was shared before Maura tried another way by hopping up onto the counter. From here she pulled Jane into a kiss, wrapping her legs around her. Once again emboldened, Jane secured her arms around Maura’s back.

“Yeah?” she asked. 

Maura nodded, smiling at her. “Yeah.”

Jane stepped back from the counter and teetered a bit, but held herself steady. Maura didn’t feel too heavy; it was just a situation Jane had never been part of and she had to try readjusting her stance a couple of times to accommodate the new but very exciting position. She could tell Maura was trying to make herself as light as possible for her benefit, sometimes propping her hand against the wall as they walked past to give them a little balance. That made Jane laugh, and she did so with extra bravado to let Maura know it was all right as she headed towards the bedroom. Given Jane’s steady stride, Maura felt safe enough to relax a little for the last few strides, running her fingers through Jane’s hair and clearing a spot on her neck to kiss.

“You’re beautiful, too,” she said. “I hope you know that.”

“Ah, stop it,” Jane said playfully. “‘Beautiful’ is what my mother calls me when I put a dress on for Easter. ‘Beautiful’ is for women like you.” 

“Would you prefer another word instead?” Maura asked. She grasped one of Jane’s arms, which felt hard with the strain of holding her up. It made her light-headed for a moment. “Studly? Handsome, gorgeous?” 

They’d reached the bedroom, and Jane said, “I bet you’re good at telling because you know all those good thesaurus words. But why don’t you try showing me instead?” 

On trembling legs, Jane deposited her on the bed, and Maura’s robe slipped open a little. Jane hovered over her but didn’t kiss her right away, unable to keep herself from taking in the sight of the newly exposed skin. It wasn’t the ravenous sort of look Maura was used to getting; it was almost understated, just a quiet gaze that made Maura feel like she was burning up in the best way. She took gentle hold of Jane’s hand, slipping it inside her robe, and the skin-to-skin contact almost made Maura moan. Her chest heaved with the deep breath she had failed to stifle, and Jane’s hand shifted up to meet it, cupping her breast as she initiated a kiss. 

Somehow, it was only in this moment that it occurred to Jane to think she’d never been remotely close to doing something like this with a woman before, and it further dawned on her that she had no idea if Maura ever had, either. But rather than be unsettled by this, she was thrilled by the prospect of unfolding something new together. Even if neither of them had exact experience, Jane could put her full trust in how well Maura knew her own body and how to excite it. Not that it was all rocket science: Jane passed her thumb repeatedly over Maura’s nipple, and the sensation of making it harden was thrilling for them both.

Maura arched into the touch, and she blindly started groping for Jane’s belt. The clinking of the unbuckling was something Jane had heard thousands of times before but it had never struck her as an enticing sound until this moment. Already in the back of her mind she was looking forward to the next time they’d do this, just so she could hear Maura do that again and maybe watch it happen that time. 

“I know you sometimes like to wear your clothes and your shoes to bed,” Maura said, trying to tug off Jane’s pants. “But would you consider indulging me—? What do you usually sleep in, when you haven’t accidentally dozed off at my place?” 

“A little more than you, but a little less than this,” Jane answered, as she hurriedly rolled off of Maura to yank her pants off. Her fingers were shaking as she tried to undo the tiny buttons of her shirt. 

“Wait!” Maura said, kneeling on the bed. Eyes gleaming with excitement, she took hold of Jane’s button-up as if ready to tear it open. “How much do you care about this shirt?”

Jane frowned. “Oh, um, really? I’m—it’s my favorite flannel.”

“Oh.”

“You asked! That’s why I wore it over here, actually.”

“Aw. That’s sweet. I’m sorry, I’ve just had sort of a fantasy about doing that for some time. But I can make this quick regardless.”

As Maura made nimble work of undoing the buttons, Jane’s head swam and she asked, “You’ve fantasized about ripping my shirt open?” 

It intrigued her that Maura didn’t seem embarrassed by this. “In a harlequin romance sort of way, yes.” 

“Harley Quinn? Are you saying I drive you…crazy?” Jane asked, pumping her eyebrows. Both references were lost on each other, and both of them just laughed and went with it. “You’re fast,” Jane observed, shrugging off the flannel. 

“Yes, well, I have a lot of experience with minute precision,” Maura said. “Want to see what else my fingers can do?” 

Now down to the tank and boxer briefs and struggling to keep up with seductive tone of voice Maura had just employed, Jane all but fell back on the bed. She moved to straddle Maura, but with surprising strength Maura flipped them over, pushing Jane down on her back. Jane barely succeeded in repressing a yelp.

Looking almost shy for the first time, Maura bit her lip then said, “I like to be on top.” 

Jane shifted so that she was propped up a bit more, her hands anchoring themselves in the pools of Maura’s sheets as she tried willing her heartbeat to slow down. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined the night was going to end this way. She’d just made the resolution at some point not to avoid the possibility of talking about it if it ever came up, and it had, and all of a sudden here they were. High tension was thrumming throughout her entire body, warmed by the complete adoration she felt for the person smiling down at her. She barely knew where to start.

“What else have you fantasized about?” Jane whispered. 

Maura pursed her lips, but she looked amused. “If you mean erotic things, it was really just that one shirt-tearing notion. It didn’t seem appropriate to let my mind wander beyond that. Did you ever…?” 

“Not really, no,” Jane said softly. “I mean, maybe stuff like we’d be watching TV on the couch and I’d notice you getting tired, and I’d wish I could tell you to just go ahead and lean on me. Fall asleep on my shoulder.” The fact that she could share such an innocent fantasy while they were so positioned struck Maura as incredibly endearing, but she didn’t want to interrupt to say so. Jane went on: “Or I thought about just wanting to hold you, and not have to let go. Which I guess I did, after a while, or I mean I didn’t—let go—because I think that’s… that’s how we got here. I just stopped thinking, ‘oh, friends don’t hug this long’ or ‘friends don’t look at each other like this.’ It felt like you were doing the same thing, like, not pushing me away if an embrace went on forever or not asking me why I was smiling when I looked over at you.”

“Does it feel like this is happening kind of fast?” Maura asked, and she didn’t need to elaborate.

Jane’s voice was hoarse. “Yeah, but no. Feels like I’ve been waiting a long time. Does it to you?”

“It’s sudden, but not in alarming way. Colloquially speaking, I guess you could say I’m going with my gut,” she said, and that got Jane to grin. “I think I like it in this case.”

“Guts, and maybe something else?” 

There came that warm smile again, sincere and striking. “Again it’s colloquial, but my heart got me here too, Jane.”  
“Oh,” Jane said with a short laugh, looking touched. “That’s so sweet, Maura.” 

“You sound surprised.”

“No, only ’cause I was gonna say it’s not just your guts, it’s that you feel very, um… I mean, I feel really, uh…” Oh geez. If she wasn’t going to be direct about this, what was the point? “I’m so wet right now.”

Even having gotten to this point, Maura looked surprised that Jane—normally so squeamish about sex—would be so blunt. “I am, too.”

“I know,” Jane moaned. She moved her hands to Maura’s hips. “I can feel it.”

Not quite in Jane’s lap, Maura was straddling one of her legs. She leaned down to kiss her and slowly started to roll her hips. Jane was unsure if her hands were guiding this action or just along for the ride, only cognizant of their placement as Maura’s thrusts got a little less relaxed and her own grip got a little more tight. The sensation was too much and Maura broke the kiss, trailing her lips over to Jane’s ear so she could whisper into it, making her hushed words feel loud and intimate:

“Can I touch you?” 

Jane’s neck was too stiff to nod, and she could only pant in reply: “Yes—yes—”

That would be the last word she spoke for a few minutes, because as soon as Maura’s hand slipped between them, Jane wasn’t even sure she was breathing anymore. Maura was sure, though, because she relished the sound of Jane’s gentle gasp. It morphed into quiet, wordless cries, pitched a little higher than Maura would ever have expected to hear from Jane. Jane did actually try to say something more than once, something to encourage Maura or at least vocalize the euphoria she was experiencing, but it seemed that every time she got ready to do that Maura would alter her fingers in just such a way to bring about a new electric sensation, rendering Jane once again too stunned for words. Ultimately, all she got out was a tiny “oh, my God—” when Maura slid inside her. Jane’s back arched off the bed, and Maura, once again with impressive force, pushed her back down with a lusty glint in her eye that Jane found both surprising and exhilarating. It was only there for a moment, though, before Maura’s soft expression of joy, of eager encouragement, came back, and it didn’t take much longer to coax a release from Jane. 

Only a few silent seconds passed, where incredulous smiles were exchanged instead of words. Maura untied the very loose sash on her robe, shrugging it off, and Jane propped herself back up at full attention to stare in what Maura would consider very flattering surprise. After a moment’s hesitation, Jane yanked her tank-top off, then struggled to un-hook her bra.

“Oh, my gosh,” she muttered. “Why do I suddenly feel like a teenage boy trying to—”

“I’ve got it,” Maura said, reaching around and deftly undoing the clasp. 

Before she let go, Maura leaned forward and caught Jane in another kiss. She traced her tongue along Jane’s upper lip, dipping into Jane’s mouth. This drove Jane to rock forward, clutching Maura’s back, only relenting because pulling their bodies so close together was making it hard for Maura to remove Jane’s bra. They pulled apart for a moment to accomplish this, and Jane was too turned on to laugh. She was a little surprised at the lack of decorum Maura exhibited by just tossing the bra over the side of the bed, but Jane didn’t have time to linger on this because now Maura’s hand—so soft, so smooth no doubt due to the copious time she put into skincare that Jane used to mock her for—was palming her breast. Maura’s fingers fanned out before two of them pinched Jane’s nipple and pulled. Jane’s tension melted and she fell back limply against the pillows.

“Is this okay?” Maura whispered. “Do you like it?”

The questions were sincerely asked, not intended as would-be sexy rhetoric Jane had heard boyfriends grunt out in the past. 

“Yeah,” she moaned. “Yeah, s’good.” 

With this approval, Maura stepped it up a notch. She resumed their kiss, and the free hand that had been innocently resting at Jane’s waist shifted down between her legs. Jane broke the kiss for an involuntary gasp, but Maura was quick to continue it. It didn’t take long for her swirling fingers, moving in tandem with her tongue, to make Jane come again. 

Jane found herself struggling to catch her breath, but relaxed as she remembered she wasn’t in a hurry. “Holy shit,” she managed between deep breaths. “I didn’t know that was… like… allowed.”

“Which part?” 

“Twice in a row like that, uh, whoa. I’ve never…” 

Maybe at some point they’d talk about this, but it didn’t need to be right this second. Jane hadn’t disliked sex before now, so much as she had felt sort of indifferent to it. At worst it was an obligation; at best, it was a demonstration of affection that men seemed to enjoy a lot more than she did. Only one boyfriend had made her come before with what seemed to be a fluke, and she’d been too embarrassed to straight-forwardly ask him to touch her that way again. She had to laugh at the contrast to Maura “I’ve-never-told-a-guy-he-was-good-when-he-wasn’t” Isles, but some sense of propriety or more likely self-consciousness about sex and sexuality had always kept Jane from talking about what she thought would feel good. Her heart was still racing. She was already making a mental list of things she wanted to ask Maura to try—maybe not a conversation she’d be eager to have in daylight over breakfast, but in the semi-darkness of this bedroom, the prospect didn’t intimidate her too much.

“I’m not a score-keeper, Jane.”

“Hm? What?” 

“I took an elective art class at BCU, and my professor said something in response to students who tried to rush their way through assignments to, I don’t know, prove they were doing a better job than everyone else. She said that art is like sex: it’s not about who finishes first—or in tonight’s example, perhaps, who finishes however many times—it’s about enjoying the process.” Her mouth quirked into a one-sided smile. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you’re enjoying the process.” 

All Jane had the energy to do right now was rub Maura’s thighs. “Hell yeah, baby. …hm. Baby? How do we feel about that?”

“I don’t hate it. But I’d use it sparingly.” 

“Yeah, fair.” 

She continued massaging Maura’s thighs, waiting to finish coming down. Maura noticed that Jane’s eyes didn’t seem to rest: they would travel down to various parts of her body before periodically coming back to meet Maura’s gaze, and each time this happened, Jane’s subdued smile would get wider. As much as Jane’s entire body and soul had wanted this, some small gnawing part of her had worried that afterwards she would be nagged by feelings of doubt or shame. But none of that was here. All she felt was the most tremendous glow filling her from the inside out. Maura was looking down at her, now having shifted more to be over Jane’s lap, a look of serene patience and affection on her face. 

“Okay.” Jane hadn’t meant to whisper, but she was feeling parched and her voice was going. She cleared her throat and sat back up. “Tell me what you want.” 

Maura opened her mouth to respond, but seemed to think better of something. “What do you want to do to me?” 

Jane’s mind burst with possibilities, hazy half-formed images, some of which would require items she was pretty sure Maura wouldn’t have on hand (or if she did, that Jane wouldn’t be ready to wield yet). “I, um. I…”

“Ah right, you prefer to show, not tell,” Maura said. “Go on, then, Jane, please. I’m so…” 

Half-expecting a clinical answer, Jane asked, “You’re so what, Dr. Isles?” 

Maura shivered and leaned down closer. “I’m so ready for you.” She relished the effect these words seemed to have on Jane, whose response was audible. “I’m so ready that I could just take care of the job myself in a matter of seconds, but I want my chance to—or rather, I want you to have your chance to ah, enjoy the process. Please.” 

It was hard not to go right for the money, but there was plenty to enjoy here. Cradling Maura close to her, Jane kissed her jaw, then started leaving a trail of soft kisses down her neck. Her hands also progressed downwards, shifting from Maura’s waist to curve around her backside, pulling her closer still. This forced Maura to straighten her back, which in turn pushed her breasts into Jane’s face. Later, Jane would reflect on the fact that she’d never really been able to act on sheer instinct during sex before, because it was almost always something she was kind of just waiting to be done with and she was trying to think of the next step ahead that would be the least uncomfortable. With Maura, though, she was moving on pure drive and didn’t pause to think about it before she took one of Maura’s breasts into her mouth. The breathy, surprised “oh” she got in response surged a new excitement through her. 

Maura’s hands glided up into Jane’s hair, and as her body started to rock, her grip got tighter. It got tight enough that it started to hurt a little, and for a few moments Jane could get down with the pain because the intensity of Maura wanting her this badly was ecstasy in its own way. But that feeling soon passed, and the pain was an unwelcome distraction.

Jane was loathe to stop what she was doing, and her only consolation when she pulled away was the wordless sound of distinct disapproving confusion that came from Maura. 

“What’s wrong, are you all right?” Maura asked, her words almost slurring together with their speed. 

“It’s, ah, I’ve got kind of a sensitive scalp,” Jane said. “Really sensitive, actually, so uh...”

Maura looked relieved that this was all. “Oh, okay, I’m sorry. Hm. I can’t wait for you to see how much that isn’t a problem for me.” Jane barely had time to register the implications of this before Maura had reached over her to grasp the headboard with both hands. She looked down at Jane expectantly, and the cockiness in her tone dropped. “Please, touch me. Please.” 

Jane didn’t need to be asked twice. A little more repositioning was required for her to be able to semi-comfortably reach between them, and Maura accommodated her by widening her stance. Jane glanced up, torn between wanting to watch Maura and wanting to bury her face in her chest, and what helped her decide to go with the latter was the stirring remembrance that this wasn’t going to be a one-and-done deal for them; she didn’t need to get burnt out trying to see and touch and do everything in one night. 

A little unsure, she relied on Maura’s quiet, feverish directions about how to move her fingers, the most urgent of which came between semi-formulated strings of words that would make a sailor blush: “inside, inside.” Jane timed this movement to coincide another kiss to Maura’s breast, and stars exploded behind her eyes as her lips and tongue took in the soft, puckered, and rock hard textures. Maura cried out and one of her hands flew to Jane’s head, but she quickly remembered herself and banged her fist against the wall before grasping the headboard again. Jane moved her free hand up to Maura’s other breast, and had barely gotten a secure hold before Maura grasped it with her own and squeezed. 

After a few more frantic thrusts, Maura tensed up. When Jane felt Maura’s grip on her hand slacken, she leaned back against the pillows, taking her chance to look up at her. Though she appeared relaxed, Maura was trembling, heaving deep but quiet breaths. Before releasing Jane’s hand, she gently pressed her lips to the palm, then brushed over each finger before she slid back down into bed. Jane kissed her side, her arm, her neck as Maura made her slow descent. They met at the lips for a brief but torrid few moments until Maura kept going down. 

The relaxed pace was a welcome change from the frenzy they’d worked themselves up into. Maura had slid down enough to let her head rest on Jane’s chest, but with the proximity this offered, she didn’t seem able to stop herself there: she shifted to kiss Jane’s breast, her tongue swirling lazily around a hardening tip while her hand massaged the other. 

Jane groaned, and it was the sexiest thing Maura had ever heard. “Mmm… wow,” Jane managed. Her hands came to rest in Maura’s hair, but in keeping with the leisurely rhythm Maura had established, Jane’s grip was so, so soft. “I was h…” Her breath hitched as Maura draped her leg between Jane’s, allowing Jane to gently rock against it. “I was hoping you’d do that.”

It wasn’t long before Jane stilled her movements, and Maura soon followed, also satiated. She moved up to draw Jane into a languid kiss. It had many stops and starts, unhurried as they both simmered down. The only break came when Maura reached down to the end of the bed to pull the covers up, and Jane tugged off her underwear. The moment she rolled back, Maura pulled their bodies flush together and let her hands wander, luxuriating in the fact that they were met only with bare skin. 

“Ohh, kay, that was amazing,” Jane whispered. “I. Wow.” 

Maura still felt like she was catching her breath, and her words came out in a rush between them. “It was. It really, really, really was.”

This, Maura realized, was now just a slightly more intense version of the innocuous fantasies Jane had described earlier: the freedom to be this close to her, and not worry that it might be construed as weird or inappropriate. She snuggled in closer, and Jane rubbed her back, kissing the top of Maura’s head. It had been a cool, rainy evening, and the warmth of each other’s skin brought an unprecedented level of coziness. They were content to lie there in comfortable silence for some time, until Maura’s curiosity got the best of her.

“What are you thinking right now?”

“I’m thinking I’m so glad I didn’t make penne a la vodka and garlic bread, like I originally planned,” Jane said, and this answer earned her a snorted laugh and light slap to the stomach. “Man, I dunno if even mouthwash could’ve helped me in that situation.”

“Might’ve made this more of an uphill battle.”

The laughter died out, and Jane resumed massaging Maura’s back. “Nah, but really, though. I’m thinking how glad I am that this happened.” When her hand stilled its movements again, Maura looked up at her. “I’m just so glad we got here. Do you wish it had happened sooner?”

The swiftness of Maura’s answer surprised Jane as much as it surprised herself: “No, I don’t. Because to me, that would indicate a feeling that we’d wasted time. I don’t believe we have.” She craned her neck, leaning up for a kiss that Jane happily gave her. “I think in instances that aren’t life-or-death, instances where we have a choice—those things can happen only when we’re ready for them to happen. If I’d tried to make instigate something a year ago, maybe you wouldn’t have been ready. If you’d tried to instigate something six months ago, maybe I wouldn’t have been ready. This happened now because we were both ready, and it happened because we’re each other’s best friends. That friendship developed because we gave it time to thrive. So, no, I’m not going to look backwards and think ‘oh, if only.’ All I’m going to do once I recuperate from the utter elation I’m feeling right now is think about all the things we’re going to get to do now in the future. Together.” 

Maura could feel as much as see Jane taking a deep breath, but didn’t expect it to come back out as a sob. Before Maura could sit up to see what was wrong, Jane had clumsily enveloped her in an uncomfortable if touching hug. “How’d you do that?” Jane asked. “How’d you do that, Maura? I can barely think straight enough right now to put two sentences together and you’re like—saying stuff like—oh, my gosh. Thank you. Just… thank you.” 

It had occurred to Maura before that, possibly as a carryover from work, Jane had a tendency to let her mind drift to worst-case-scenario places in her personal life. Usually this manifested as some future imagining, not a manner of rear-window regret, and Maura hoped she could minimize that as much as possible. The intensity of this embrace seemed to indicate success.

“Please don’t tell anyone I cried after sex,” Jane said, and Maura laughed. “I’m gonna lose my street cred.”

“Your cred is safe with me,” Maura chuckled.

“Something tells me I’m gonna be thanking you for the rest of my life.” 

“I’ll strive to be worthy of it.”

“Maura, I want you to know that this is in no way an exaggeration,” Jane murmured, once she had recovered. Her eyes were closed and she had a tranquil smile on her face. “I have never felt this damn good in my entire life. Like in my heart and in my soul, but just my body, I mean wow.” 

“Would you believe me if I said the same was true for me?” 

Jane opened one eye, giving Maura an amused but disbelieving look. “I would consider it only because I know you can’t lie.”

“So that surprises you.”

“I mean, just ’cause it seems like sex is something you’re really, like… good at? Or at least you seem to have more of it than me.”

“Well, that’s certainly true,” Maura said, and her tone made Jane snort a laugh. “No, I mean your latter point. That first one, though, this idea of a person being ‘good’ at sex, is such a fallacy.” 

“Really? I’ve sure heard a lot of dudes brag about it…”

“That should be your first clue,” Maura teased her. Jane laughed. She propped herself up on her elbow and started to trace indiscriminate patterns on Jane’s stomach. “This degree of intimacy is subjective, though, which means regardless of how many people a person beds, it doesn’t make them an objective master of it. I think in my case what you’d mean is that perhaps because I have a background in studying anatomy, I might have various notions about the best ways to stimulate pleasure in myself or my partner. That certainly helps me attain a release when I need one. But this… this is different.”

Jane reached over, stroking away a few stray strands near Maura’s forehead. “Showtime is over. Tell me.” 

Maura looked a little shy again as she took Jane’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “Sometimes, it is just about the right angles and such. But I know the reason I feel so good right now is because…”

Jane felt her heartbeat picking up again. “Because why? It’s not like you to be vague.”

“I’m not trying to be vague. I’m trying to be careful. I mean, I don’t know if it’s way too early for me to say what I want to be saying.” 

It was a little hard for Jane’s detective theorizing to cut through the blissful, dreamy haze that surrounded her right now, but she did her best. “Maura, if it was ‘way too early’ for saying that, I wouldn’t have done what we just did. I’m not super casual in general when it comes to—well, to borrow your phrasing, this degree of intimacy. But I could for sure never be casual with you.” 

She had taken Maura’s hand and brought it to cover her heart. Maura smiled at the gesture and leaned over for a soft kiss. “Jane. I love…” She pecked one of Jane’s dimples. “Your smile. I love your laugh. I love when you make me smile, and make me laugh. I love that I can laugh with you in bed.” She drummed her fingers where they lay on Jane’s chest, making that dimpled smile widen and getting a throaty chuckle. “I love your good heart. I love how much you care about people, even people you don’t know when you’re on the job. But to be honest, I especially love the way you care about me, and how you show that to me every day. What we did just now, that was just an extension of it all.” 

This was something Jane had struggled to articulate—how bringing things to this level had just felt like a logical progression in her semi-undefined relationship with Maura. There had been instances in the past where she’d slept with a co-worker or friend and felt wracked with embarrassment or some other sense of wrongdoing immediately afterwards. That wasn’t the case here. All she felt was the affirming glow of something right. Something natural. 

Maura was still going, her hand now drifting along Jane’s arm. “I love your strength,” she said. She rubbed her thumb along Jane’s bicep, smiling when she flexed. “The physical strength is arousing, yes, but I meant your emotional strength. That’s something you’ve really warmed up in me, too, and I’m so grateful for it. I love that you were really vulnerable with me.” 

“It’s because I feel safe with you,” Jane said. It seemed like a redundant thing to say, but ultimately that was why she wanted to say it. Maybe things that seemed obvious to her were things Maura still needed to hear out loud, just to be certain. Just to have the scientific proof. Jane smirked. “Sounds like you’ve got it bad.”

Maura could only offer her a weary smile. “I’m afraid I do.” 

Jane beckoned for her to lie back down, and Maura did, resting her head on the crook of Jane’s neck. Jane kissed Maura’s forehead a few times before it occurred to her that it was her turn to speak, and that whatever she said wouldn’t be redundant. 

“Maura?” 

“Yes?”

“I love you, too.”


	3. Familiar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! So, I don't think I'd say there's a direction for a fleshed-out narrative here. Just got a couple of drabbles in mind and thought it could be interesting to work through them in a new relationship fic instead of a series of first-time one-shots. It's comforting to go back into the familiar Rizzles world while everything feels so upside-down right now, so I hope this helps cheer someone else as much as it cheers me to be writing again.

Maura’s internal clock usually got her up around six, but today it let her have an extra half an hour. She and Jane had fallen asleep in each other’s arms, but over the course of the night, Jane had rolled off onto her side. Maybe that had been recent, and maybe the absence of warmth had been what had woken Maura. It seemed selfish to risk waking Jane up, but Maura couldn’t resist snuggling closer, making herself the big spoon to Jane’s little one. She felt Jane stir.

“Good morning, sleeping beaut—AHH!” 

Jane had jerked awake and elbowed Maura in the stomach, alarmed before she’d gotten a chance to get her bearings. Maura was laughing, and Jane flipped over to apologize. 

“Hey, hey, sorry! You startled me,” she said, her voice scratchy from tiredness. 

“I shouldn’t have just grabbed you, I’m sorry—”

“—I woke up and like, forgot for a second. Mmph. What time is it?” 

“Half past six.”

“Oh, dang.” Jane rubbed her eyes, failing to stifle a yawn. “I just realized I forgot to set an alarm.”

A pang of disappointment rippled through Maura as she remembered that even after a life-altering evening relationship pivoting, work was still a force that existed and while she had the day off, Jane wasn’t so lucky. “When do you go in?”

“Not till eight-thirty, so… I could stay in bed another half hour, I think?”

They shared a smile, pleased by that notion. Furthermore, Maura was glad that as Jane reached over the side of the bed to get her phone out of her pants pocket to set an alarm, she wasn’t self-conscious enough to try covering up. She was comfortable, even happy, with being seen in the light of morning that crept in through Maura’s curtains. When Jane came back to bed, she looked ready to resume the cuddling position they had fallen asleep in, but Maura directed her to lay on her side again. 

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a big spoon,” Jane said, taking hold of Maura’s hand. 

“Figures,” Maura chuckled. She gave Jane’s neck a chaste kiss. “We can switch off, if you want.” 

With a contented sigh, Jane started to rub the arm Maura had curled around her. “Man. I’ve never slept so good in my entire life.”

Maura wanted to echo the sentiment but couldn’t help a minor correction: “I’ve never slept so _well_ either.”

Jane noticed. “You nerd.”

“If I’m a nerd, what does that make you?” Maura asked, leaving a longer kiss on Jane’s neck this time. “Nerd-lover.”

Jane’s grin felt too wide for her face. “Ooh, you got me there.” 

“I wish you didn’t have to go in so early,” Maura said. “I want to make us a nice breakfast, and just have a leisurely morning with you.”

“Me, too. If I’d known this was gonna happen, I’d have waited to make dinner for you on a night when I wouldn’t be working the next day.” They shared a laugh over that. “But we’ll have lots of those, Maura, don’t worry. This is nice for now.” Jane sighed again as Maura hummed her assent. She liked this positioning, but thought if they were facing each other she’d at least have been able to see if Maura was falling back asleep. “I hope this never get old,” Jane whispered after a while. 

Her voice was so quiet, that had the morning been any louder outside, Maura might not have heard it. “I do and I don’t. The only reason I would is that I think there’s something nice in intimacy becoming so customary that it’s comfortable. Normal. The trick is just in making sure that it’s not taken for granted. That, and, maybe, it’d be a good idea now to take advantage of how…” 

“Hm? How what?” Jane asked, a laugh evident in her voice. 

“Of how easy it is to be aroused while this still feels new,” Maura admitted.

“Oh, thank God it’s not just me,” Jane said. “I didn’t want to be a creep by bringing it up.”

“Am I a creep?!”

“No! No, I’m sorry,” Jane said, trying to turn around but Maura wouldn’t let her. “No, I’ve just never had this experience before of like… getting wet just lying next to someone.” Being this frank was also new to her, but she was willing to push through her discomfort to communicate fully with Maura. Still, there was a tinge of embarrassment in her laugh. “Mm, it feels good, though. So good.” 

Maura pressed herself as close to Jane’s back as she could, wondering if Jane could feel how wet she was, too. “Can you show me how good? No,” she added in a softer voice, when Jane seemed ready to pull Maura’s hand down between her legs. “I mean, show me yourself.” 

“My…” 

It took Jane’s hazy morning brain a second to catch up, and when it did, she wasn’t sure she wanted to follow through. She associated touching herself in bed with trying to satisfy herself when her boyfriend hadn’t, after he’d gotten off and fallen asleep. But there was no possible way to conflate those experiences with what was happening now, because Maura was clearly still interested in being an active participant. It still seemed like an odd idea for a second— _why take care of this myself if you’re right here?_ —but Jane resolved to give it a try. 

She’d already known she was wet, but was surprised by how much this was the case when she let her fingers go down. Maura watched for a few moments, transfixed, as she both saw and heard the sheets rustle over Jane’s arm. She ground herself a little closer, then shifted her hand to cup Jane’s breast. Jane worked hard to keep herself from making too much noise, but she couldn’t help a soft moan when Maura’s gentle-but-insistent caressing was coupled with a kiss just below Jane’s ear. It wasn’t long before Jane jerked away, burying her face in the pillow to stifle a groan. The words “gonna be the death of me” were barely distinguishable. 

In time, she recovered enough to turn over and laugh, “I’ve never felt that way at 6:30 in the morning. I thought we were just gonna cuddle!” 

“We still can!” 

“No, c’mon, I gotta take care of you, though…”

“Already taken care of.”

“What? Seriously? But I was only, like…”

“I couldn’t wait.”

“You couldn’t wait five seconds?!”

“It was more like twenty.” Maura was having trouble keeping a straight face in light of Jane’s amused incredulity. “I’m sorry, I really couldn’t wait. I was too aroused. Isn’t that flattering?” She lay on her back, opening her arms and beckoning Jane to come back. “Now we have all the more time for cuddling. And,” she said, once Jane had moved into her embrace, “you better make sure you never give me a reason to blackmail you. Because badass Jane Rizzoli, crying after sex and liking to cuddle? Oh, my…”

Jane groaned a laugh. “If I ever give you reason to blackmail me, I’ll deserve that and worse.” 

They lay in comfortable silence for some time, still except for Maura tracing her finger up and down Jane’s back. She remembered how nice it had felt last night when Jane kissed her forehead, almost as a calming measure, and she supplied the motion for Jane. In response, Jane’s sigh came out as a hum that somehow seemed to reverberate all through Maura’s body. Jane pressed a short kiss to her collar before falling back asleep.

The alarm was an unpleasant reminder that a day full of non-Maura, non-cozy work was ahead of her. Maura swiftly got up and picked up her robe from where it had been discarded the other night, grabbing some pajamas from her chest of drawers. She winked at Jane over her shoulder before walking out of the room. 

Jane took a shower and met Maura in the kitchen, where she was handed a mug of coffee and instructed to sit. But Jane just leaned against the island, cupping the mug with both hands and beaming as she watched Maura prepare to scramble some eggs, muttering about wishing she could do something more elaborate. Maura walked back over to grab a whisk from a drawer near Jane, and broke into a grin when she noticed the serene smile on Jane’s face. They were close together, and with a flash Maura remembered she didn’t need to hold back from closing the distance anymore. She gave Jane a peck on the lips, and started to say “now please, go sit d—” but was cut off when Jane tugged her back in by the waist for a longer kiss.

“Hi—”

“—good morning.” 

“Did we say that already?”

“Doesn’t mean we can’t again.” 

The whispered exchanges snuck in between a few more kisses before Jane helped by making Maura some tea. “What do you like with it?” Jane asked. It seemed that Maura was maybe too preoccupied with not overcooking the eggs to answer, so Jane prompted her, “Sugar? Honey?” 

“I think ‘sugar,’ maybe if you were being cheesy on purpose,” she said, and Jane stopped in the middle of reaching for the sugar jar. “And actually, ‘honey’ has kind of a nice ring to it. Oh.” She smiled at Jane, letting her know that she’d understood the real nature of the question. “And I’d like a little honey for the tea, yes, so please leave it out.” 

Jane replied with “no problem, honey,” and was pleased by how unaffected the term of endearment sounded when she said it. At Maura’s suggestion, Jane grabbed some strawberries out of the refrigerator, and after leaving a few out for Bass, washed some and put them in a bowl for the table. Maura joined her shortly afterwards, and Jane fished around for something to say that would help express even a smidgen of the joy she was feeling. 

“That’s a cute apron,” she said. She toyed with the idea of adding something playful but sexy, on the lines of _I’d like to see you wearing it and nothing else_ , but couldn’t bring herself to try it. 

“Thank you!” Maura said with a little shimmy. “I’ve been meaning to get a new one, one to match this kitchen, but it does the job.” 

It had been an ordinary compliment. There was more to express, and where Jane used to be the kind of person who felt it was embarrassing to have feelings, she found herself wanting Maura to have an idea of what all of them were. “It feels really nice to have woken up here on purpose for a change,” she said. 

Maura smiled warmly at her, reaching for Jane’s hand. “It feels so nice to have woken up with you.”

“Geez, I feel like a kid!” Jane groaned. “I don’t wanna gooo!”

“I feel like a punk, because I want you to play hooky.”

“Oh man,” Jane chuckled, going back to the breakfast but keeping her free hand in Maura’s. “Punk Dr. Isles, Queen of the Dead, look out. Ahh, I should’ve set that alarm for sooner—I gotta go home and change into some work-appropriate clothes.” She gave Maura’s hand a squeeze. “Wanna drop by for lunch?” 

With a smirk, Maura trailed her foot along Jane’s shin under the table. “I’d love to, but let’s meet in my office. I’d like some privacy.” 

Frost and Korsak seemed bewildered by Jane’s cheery attitude when she strolled into the Division One Café later that morning, as did Angela, who watched with narrowed eyes and uncharacteristically clamped lips as Jane whistled and poured herself a second cup of coffee for the day. They were almost ready to shrug it off until Jane bumped into Crowe on her way out, and instead of berating him, offered a jolly “oh, excuse me!” before moving on. Crowe looked around the café as if to make sure everyone else had just seen what he’d experienced. The blank stares he got in return confirmed it.

He walked over to Frost and said, “So Rizzoli must’ve got laid, right?” 

“Man, get your mind out of the gutter. All you know, she cracked a cold case.” 

But once he got up to the bullpen, Frost hated to consider the possibility that Crowe might be right for once. Jane had downplayed her giddiness when she got upstairs, but the smile on her face still seemed distinctly different from her I’ve-made-a-break-in-the-case expressions. Furthermore, she surely would’ve mentioned it if this was a work thing. He decided the most tactful thing to do would be to wait for her to bring up whatever it was (but it was maybe also a decision he reached for the sake of self-preservation). It was hard not to be bursting with questions, though, when he’d hear Jane’s phone buzz and see her look down at it with a goofy grin. 

“Watching a baby animal video, Rizzoli?” Korsak asked.

She cleared her throat and tried to quell a smile. “No. Sorry. Nothing. Nothing cute.” Her demeanor was more professional for the rest of the morning, but when Maura texted her in the afternoon to say that she was in the building, Jane was off like a rocket. 

Although Detective Rizzoli wasn’t always one to observe the decorum most found appropriate for working in the morgue, Susie had still never seen her burst in like this before. Without even her typical cursory nod of acknowledgement, Jane made a beeline for Maura’s office, which the doctor had only just arrived at herself. Maura hadn’t even gotten a chance to sit down yet. She was unbuttoning her pink trench coat, smiling at Jane’s excitement, which was so strong that she slammed the door shut with a loud bang that neither of them were cognizant enough to find loud. Underneath her coat, Maura had on a sleeveless top and a skirt that was a little shorter than what she’d usually wear to work. 

“Detective Rizzoli, hello,” she said, perching herself on her desk. The skirt hitched a little higher, and she was pleased to see Jane take notice. “What can I do for you?” 

Jane swaggered over to the desk with a calm sort of cool that Maura found absolutely delicious. “Hey there.”

“Hi,” Maura said, beaming up at her. Without warning, she grabbed hold of Jane’s crisp black button-up with both hands, as if ready to yank it open. Jane looked alarmed but on impulse she grabbed hold of Maura’s waist, making no immediate move to stop her. But then Maura smiled, loosening her grip, and Jane let out an airy laugh. 

“You’re a tease, Dr. Isles.”

“I’d hate to send you back upstairs a mess, and in such a nice top, too. I’m guessing you didn’t bring a back-up shirt to work, did you?”

“Clearly a mistake.” 

Maura smoothed out Jane’s shirt, then held up a large bag Jane had only just noticed on the desk. “I brought us some lunch. Shall we eat?” They relocated to the couch, and Maura started unpacking the food. “Should we discuss protocol?” 

“Protocol?” Jane snorted. “Do you mean, should we talk about foolin’ around at work?” 

“To put it a little more crudely, yes. I’m sorry for teasing you just now; I couldn’t help myself. But I promise I’ll do better. It’s just…” She waved her fork at Jane’s shirt. “I don’t know. It’s as if, now that I know there’s a possibility of making that fantasy come true, those shirts are going to have a Pavlovian effect on me.” 

“Well, okay, see, this is what we need to talk about,” Jane said, though she looked amused. “Now that… we are… gonna be a thing, how do we want to…” She kept drifting off, half-hoping Maura would pick it up, but Maura just looked back patiently, curious to know where exactly Jane wanted to take it. “Like, even though we’ve taken things to a different level, it’s not like I’m just gonna be like—” She reached over and gave Maura’s boob a quick squeeze. “— _honk!_ at work, y’know?”

Maura’s neutral expression remained unchanged even as Jane immediately appeared to regret what she had just done. “I’m sorry, did you just grab my breast and say ‘honk’?” 

“…please don’t break up with me.”

That at least got Maura to crack a smile. “Okay, but I may consider adding it to my potential blackmail list, fair warning. Anyway, I think feeling excited at work is a normal step in this kind of relationship, but we if any, ah, ‘honking’ were to take place, my office would be a necessity. I don’t do bathrooms. I don’t do break rooms. I need a locked door and drawn shades. I’ve never dated a colleague before and never been tempted to indulge at work, but those are the parameters springing to mind as general guidelines I’d consider.”

The thought of having sex at work hadn’t even crossed Jane’s mind so much as the freedom to steal a kiss here and there, and she was surprised that Maura already seemed to have a set plan for it. “But so you’d consider actually… doing it at work?” It was insane to think they were actually having this conversation; she had to laugh a little, it seemed so surreal. “Because I don’t know if I could, even with a locked door. And shades.” 

“Doesn’t have to be sexual, just…” Maura shrugged. “Romantic? Let’s say I was working today, and I was out there in the morgue. You wouldn’t just waltz in and be tempted to make out with me me in front of my staff, would you?”

“No,” Jane said without a second thought. “I would not.”

“And if I came up to the bullpen to pass along information relevant to a case, I likewise wouldn’t throw myself at you. When we’re at work, we’ll get the work done. But if we ever need a little respite, well… my door will always be open. Metaphorically speaking, that is, because if we were to use my office, then the door would need to be closed. And locked. As previously discussed.”

Jane nodded, feeling calmed by Maura’s dedicated approach to coming up with a plan. “Yeah. Yeah, got it. That sounds good to me.” She took a few bites of lunch. “So um, does that mean you don’t want to tell anyone what we’re doing, though?” 

Maura looked surprised that Jane had reached this conclusion. “No,” she said softly. “I don’t see the need to make a formal announcement, but I also didn’t mean to imply that we should abstain from all forms of affection in the open. How do you feel about letting people know?”

“Well, this is still so new. I dunno, I don’t _not_ want people to know, but it’s like you said, I don’t wanna make a formal announcement, either. I think it’s like what you also said last night, about doing things when we’re ready to do them. When it seems like a good time to bring it up, or indulge in those little forms of affection, we’ll know.” 

With a solemn expression, Maura held out her hand for a shake. “Agreed. So, would you like to come over tonight?”

“Ehh, sure, I guess I got nothin’ better going on,” Jane teased her.

Maura rolled her eyes affectionately. “Any special requests?” 

Jane thought about it for a moment, slipping her hand onto Maura’s knee and using her thumb to rub small circles on it. “Let’s keep it low-key—I mean, no pressure to cap last night with a full meal or… whatever. Just you, just me, just chilling like we always do, but a little more so.” 

“Mm, a little more so.” Maura gently took hold of Jane’s shirt collar and brought her in for a kiss. “Sounds wonderful to me.”

Before Maura could pull away, Jane reached for one more kiss, longer this time. “That’s gonna get me through the day.”

Once she left, Maura tried hard not to distract Jane by texting her too much. This hadn’t been a problem before when one of them was working on another’s day off, but suddenly, Maura found herself wanting to message Jane about a thousand mundane things. They kept in moderate touch throughout the day, and Maura was able to keep herself entertained with some reading and online shopping until she got a text from Jane with an E.T.A. 

Jane had intended to go home and change into comfier clothes, but ultimately decided that she didn’t want to to take the time to make a second stop after she was already going on an errand out of her way to pick something up for Maura. When Maura opened the door, all Jane had down to alter her appearance was let her hair down. It fell loose and lovely, but Maura barely had time to admire it before Jane held up a bag of fudge clusters. 

“Hey, got these for you,” Jane said. “I was thinking about flowers at first, but I didn’t know if that’d be too cliché, so…”

“Oh! Jane, how _sweet_ of you,” Maura said, letting her in. She kissed Jane on the cheek and led her to the kitchen where a pizza box and a large salad bowl were sitting on the island. “Half pepperoni, and half garden slices. Just to see if I can get you to be adventurous.” 

“Why’d you make a big-ass salad if you get a veggie pizza?” Jane chuckled, opening the fridge. Her grin widened when she saw a new case of her favorite beer already on one of the shelves. She grabbed a bottle, then scanned the door for the least offensive-looking salad dressing Maura had available. Maura had started moving plates and the pizza to the coffee table in front of the TV, so Jane carried her things over as well. “Oh man,” she sighed, relaxing onto the couch. “I could get used to this.” 

Maura handed her a bottle opener. “Good, I hope you do.” 

“Maybe I already am.” Jane put her hand on Maura’s leg. “Today wasn’t even a bad work day, it was just long. And I’m so tired.”

“Well,” Maura said with a self-satisfied smirk, “you didn’t get much sleep last night. Too much _honking_.”

Jane almost choked on a sip of beer. “You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you? It’s fine. I deserve it. I’ll take the teasing, and I can tell you that the loss of sleep was worth every second,” Jane said. “Anyway, I only meant to say, I’ve been looking forward to just chilling with you tonight, like all day long. It felt … I mean, it’s kinda weird, I guess,” she said, as Maura absently picked up the remote to get Netflix open. “This isn’t the first time we’ve made plans to hang out after work. It’s usually a given. But it felt nice knowing it was gonna be…”

“More so,” Maura offered with a smile.

“Yeah.” Jane kissed her on the cheek. “You have got the most gorgeous dimples. I think that’s one of my favorite things about making you smile. Making those appear. It’s like friggin’ magic.” 

“Well, it’s actually like the movement of skin over the double zygomaticus major muscle. But point taken in hyperbole. Yours are quite lovely as well,” Maura observed, when her factual riffing had made Jane laugh and roll her eyes. “Did you know people used to think dimples were a birth defect, since they result from a muscular variation that occurs during fetal development?”

“Is that a fun fact you learned from one of your forensic documentary shows?” Jane asked, nodding at the Netflix home screen that had just shown up. “I can’t watch one of those while I’m eating, by the way.”

“What should we watch? Oh, this could be fun, maybe we’ll have our first light-hearted argument as a couple.”

“Now why do you assume right out the gate that we’re gonna have an argument?” 

“You shot down my first choice before I even offered it, and I know you’re about to ask if we can watch a cartoon.”

“She-Ra is good, Maura!”

“If it’s something you watch while you’re babysitting TJ, then I’m not watching it.”

“Don’t be a snob, and besides, we don’t watch it together anymore because he gets bored!”

“It’s too boring for a four-year-old? Why do you even bother?”

“Um, because I watch it after he goes to sleep. He likes rinky-dink short stuff, and She-Ra is too story-driven to keep his interest. It’s too thematically mature for him to follow! Stop! Laughing at me!” 

But Jane was already laughing at herself as Maura doubled over, cracking up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t expect you to get so worked up about it! I do find your escalating passion rather intriguing, I must say. Let’s table it for now, as a ‘maybe’ for later.”

After scanning through several of their options, they decided to compromise with The Great British Baking Show, which Maura had been meaning to watch and Jane was curious about. Though they were both enthusiastic, active viewers for the first stretch, in time the pizza and alcohol wore them down. When the third episode was about to start, Jane was able to force herself up to at least put the pizza in the fridge, and when she came back to the couch, Maura curled into her side and Jane put an arm around her. 

It all felt a bit out of order, because this was normally how Jane might’ve wanted to spend a first date: slow, anticipatory, quiet. The joys of last night had been explosive, but this was bliss of an equal if different nature. Her mind drifted from the show even as she heard Maura make occasional comments, and she knew she was not giving adequate responses. 

Maura sat up a little, and Jane already missed her warmth. “Are you getting tired?”

“No. I mean, yeah, but it’s okay,” Jane said, drawing her back in. She couldn’t fight a smile—nor did she need to—when Maura draped her arm over Jane’s stomach. “I was just thinking of something else.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Kind of. I’m just trying to feel my feelings.” 

The psychiatrist hired to work at BPD was a big believer in “feel your feelings,” an exercise that, with Maura’s encouragement, Jane had tried to use to prevent the compartmentalization of work-related stress from becoming toxic. Usually, the allowance of acknowledging grief or anger or pain was done with the ultimate goal of being able to move past those feelings. But sitting here with Maura lying against her, Jane’s mind had circled back to their conversation from that morning, where she had pondered the degree to which that physical intimacy would become commonplace one day. As Maura had pointed out, that was inevitable, but not a bad thing. Jane wanted to take the opportunity to mentally catalogue everything that their closeness was making her feel in this moment—not so she could move past it, but so she could remember it to call back on any time in the future.

_Don’t take this for granted, Rizzoli. She’s so soft. Think about how good it feels to have her weight resting on you. She trusts you. She wants to take care of you, and you to take care of her. You can do that. If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t be here. She’s wearing that mango-scented perfume and it smells so good. You’re a little light-headed and it’s not because of the beer. She has this punch-drunk effect on you. Pay attention to how calm she makes you feel. Remember how good it feels to have her next to you, like she was always meant to be there. Remember that, and you’re golden._

As the episode wore on, they got even less talkative, and Jane felt Maura starting to let her full weight on her. She was falling asleep. Jane was drowsy, too, but didn’t want to get up and disturb the kind of quiet moment she had dreamed of sharing with Maura for so long. Still, it occurred to her that maybe Maura would wake up later feeling stiff from her positioning, and wishing she had changed into something more comfortable. 

Jane kissed the top of her head. “Do you want to go to bed?” she whispered.

“Mm…no. I like this,” Maura mumbled back. She snuggled in a little closer, with only the energy left to tap Jane’s breast and say, “honk.”


	4. Swagger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi, all! Just a little bit more escapism, with a "Friends" reference thrown in for good measure.

The notion that Jane and Maura's relationship hadn’t really changed that much by adding a physical dimension to it was confirmed by the fact that nobody at BPD seemed to suspect something new was going on. They still bickered at the café when Maura chastised Jane for putting too much sugar in her coffee; Jane’s smile still seemed the brightest when Maura was the one it was directed at; their banter in the morgue was still enough to send awkward techs scurrying away. They maybe hopped up or down to each other’s floors a little more than usual, but not so much that anybody commented on it. 

Some things were different, but they were small. As Maura had posited earlier, both of them were too professional to suddenly get handsy on the job while other people were around. However, Jane did avail herself of several opportunities for a private conversation in Maura’s office, door locked and shades drawn, where many a nonverbal conference was had. 

Drinks at the Dirty Robber were a slightly different story. At first, Jane had wanted to be discreet, but ensconced in the bliss of new love, she was obligated to be touching Maura at all times. Thus, she would have her hand on Maura’s leg safely out of sight under the table. This had the added benefit of keying Maura up to the point that she would all but jump on Jane the second they got to one’s home. 

After a few such visits, though, it became commonplace for Jane to have her arm around Maura in the booth just because it felt weirder not to. She’d go to the bar to order something and ask, “want anything, babe?” and at least once, Maura kissed her on the cheek. They were never alone on these outings; Frost and Frankie were usually with them, sometimes Korsak, sometimes with dates, sometimes Tommy and Lydia. There’d never been an announcement or anything like that. Jane and Maura had just reached a tacit agreement to let it speak for itself and wait for people to catch on.

One night after they’d bowed out early, Korsak spotted Jane and Maura holding hands on the way to their car.

“Now, isn’t that sweet?” he observed as Maura adjusted the blazer Jane had thoughtfully draped over her shoulders. “Women really know how to take care of each other. Even a hardass like Jane, holding hands with her bestie like a schoolgirl.” 

“Her bestie?” Frost asked blankly. “They’re dating, dumbass.”

“What?” Korsak stared at Tommy and Frankie, who were also at the table. “Did you two know about this?” 

Frankie looked dumbfounded and Tommy shrugged. “Lydia thought they were already a couple when she met ’em, and didn’t believe me when I said they weren’t,” said Tommy. “But I got to thinkin’ she was maybe onto something. I mean, they’re definitely doing it now.”

Frankie gave his shoulder a sharp slap. “Tommy!” 

“Sorry, geez. They’re definitely _‘making love’_ now.” 

“Did she tell you this?” Korsak asked Frost. 

He made a face. “She didn’t need to tell me! I’ve just been using my damn eyes! Intuition, inklings, perception? I can’t believe you call yourself a detective. What, do they need to make a banner and hang it up outside the morgue? Jane’s not really one to go around with a megaphone about her feelings, you know that. I think she’s being about as obvious as she can without using words.”

“When the hell did using words become a problem?” Korsak asked.

“Maybe because she didn’t want to have to answer all your stupid, invasive questions.” 

“Do you think Ma knows?” Frankie asked Tommy, still looking thunderstruck.

Tommy reached for the fries Jane hadn’t finished. “No, because if she did, we’d have heard it from Ma by now. Just follow her example, bro. Jane’s not stressin’ about it, so we shouldn’t either. Chill out and shut up.” 

Part of the reason Jane wasn’t stressing was because Maura wasn’t. Having an extremely pushy mother, Jane had always valued her privacy, and Maura seemed to sense that. Jane hadn’t had to overthink anything because being with Maura just made sense, and part of her worried that if anyone else brought it up, _they_ would overthink it and burst the paradise bubble she was in. 

Sometimes Maura encouraged her to overthink, but not in a bad way. 

“Something’s on your mind,” Jane observed. They were back at her apartment, and Maura looked lost in thought when Jane had come back from changing into some more comfortable clothes. “Penny for your thoughts? Wait, that’s not an insult, is it? You’re not being undersold? I know you’ve been paid pretty handsomely for your thoughts, like professionally.”

“No,” Maura chuckled, as Jane joined her on the couch. “The problem is more that the idiom didn’t keep pace with inflation after Sir Thomas More coined it in the 16th century.”

“Damn! I had no idea idea it was that old. Um. A bitcoin for your thoughts?” 

Maura laughed. “Oh, gosh. I was just musing.”

“Musing. Ah, that’s your scholarly way of saying fantasizing, isn’t it?” 

“Don’t listen to me. I’m tipsy.” 

“Can you walk a straight line?” 

“Don’t make me stand up,” Maura sighed, falling back against the couch. She shifted to put her legs on Jane’s lap, and Jane got to work massaging her stockinged feet. “Mm, thank you. I wish I didn’t love footwear that’s so painful. But it’s so much cuter than the combat boots you wear…”

Jane had to laugh at that one, if only because that was how her mother had described her teenage choice of shoes. “C’mon, we both know it’s because you’re secretly a masochist. That’s why you’re with me.”

Maura sat up a little, so she could look Jane in the eye. “Don’t say that. Don’t joke about yourself like that. You’re lovely.” It was too soft and sincere a compliment to deflect, or to really respond with anything besides whispered thanks. “Actually,” Maura said, “that's kind of what I was thinking about. When you were crowing at the Dirty Robber about your darts game and getting all 'bro-y,' it reminded me. You’re lovelier than I thought you would be? A little?”

“Ouch. I hate to think you’d expect me to be an asshole, but…”

“No." Maura hiccuped. "I mean in bed.”

“Um… oh?” 

Jane hadn’t intentionally stopped the foot-massaging; she was just so caught off guard by Maura’s pondering aloud. Maura gave her foot a shake and Jane got back to it. “I don’t mean to imply I’m disappointed, because I’m certainly not.” (Jane supposed it helped in this case that Maura couldn’t lie.) “It’s just, I don’t know, now that you’ve been talking about fantasies—”

“I thought you said before it was just the shirt-ripping one.”

“Which you’ve still cruelly denied me.”

“Gotta keep you interested.”

Maura blew an errant strand of hair out of her face with a bark of a laugh. “I see, very sneaky. This wasn’t a fantasy about a particular action, so much as what I thought you’d have been like as a lover.”

“You thought about that?”

“Abstractly, yes. I assumed you would bring your swagger, your bravado to the bedroom. And instead, you’re very soft. It’s sweet.” 

Maura was being pretty direct, but to Jane, it sounded like her tipsiness was making her omit certain details. “Do you wish I was like…tougher?” 

“What? No, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you. I love how you treat me, Jane, I do.”

Jane made sure to keep her tone light, especially as it seemed Maura was heartfelt in her assessment of the behavior as sweet. “Okay. It’s just, I dunno if you were angling for something, but I feel like I should tell you now: I think handcuffs are for perps, whips are for Indiana Jones, and I’m not into like… like, don’t make me do 50 Shades of Grey stuff. Cuz I love you and I think you’re hot—”

“Thank you.”

“—but I’m not into that.” 

“I find it interesting that you made the leap from ‘swagger’ to ‘BDSM,” Maura commented. Blushing, Jane mumbled something about “bravado” and “macho and “I dunno.” Maura asked, “am I making you uncomfortable?”

There was a long enough pause after this that Maura wasn’t sure how the conversation was going to go. “No,” Jane finally said, though she sounded very hesitant. “I mean, this is probably good to, um, talk about? I don’t want you to get, like… bored with me.” 

Her voice sounded small, an unusual characteristic for Jane. Maura sat up and put her arms around her, leaning in. “Jane, there’s a lot of things you make me feel. I don’t think ‘bored’ could ever be one of them. All I was talking about was attitude, not bondage!” 

“Attitude. Okay. Um… you don’t mean that you like, want me to be mean to you, do you?”

“No,” Maura said, giving Jane’s cheek a kiss. “No, that’s not what I meant. I like a little dirty talk now and then, but nothing sadomasochistic, even in role play.” Flying right past the “dirty talk” comment before Jane had time to so much as raise her eyebrows, Maura continued, “All I meant about attitude is the way you walk into a room. Mostly at work, but sometimes even just walking into my house. You exude this magnificent confidence—and, well, swagger—that is unbelievably sexy.”

“You think the way I walk is sexy?” 

“I just said, it’s the attitude behind the walk, like you own the space. Hell, your voice is half the battle. Can I tell you a hunch?” She kissed Jane’s neck, waiting for any sound of affirmation, which she quickly got. “I think if you harnessed the power of that swagger, you would be excellent at teasing. And I love to be teased.” 

“Really?”

“Yes, and yes.” 

Jane was doubtful about her own abilities to pull off whatever Maura was imagining, but said, “Well, that’s certainly something to think about.”

A few days later, Jane was on call while Maura was working late, waiting to sign off on some test results. Maura had suggested Jane take the opportunity for a self-care day, but that was easier said than done, because Maura always seemed to have an endless list of fancy-sounding “self-care” activities and all Jane could conjure up was a dream of lounging in front of the TV with a beer guzzler helmet she did not own. By evening, she figured the least she could do was take a bath, something Maura often said she found relaxing. Jane had always been a minuteman shower person herself (sharing a bathroom with two brothers in her youth had instilled this habit in her), and she thought maybe this would be a nice opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. 

Though somewhat dubious, she decided to pour in some bubble bath Maura had gifted her two years ago and she had never used, but couldn’t bring herself to throw away. It smelled like Maura’s perfume, and Jane had to imagine that was a purposeful. To go all-out, she poured herself some beer into a wine glass, and got in. Damn, did it actually feel nice.

Before she got too settled, Jane heard her phone vibrate on the floor and dug it out of her jeans pocket. 

Maura had texted: _should be done in about half an hour, and then I’ll head over. Are you having a nice evening?_

After some deliberation, Jane decided to send a picture to her. All that was visible were her legs peeking through the bubbles (she'd put in way too much), her wine glass held aloft in the foreground. It seemed safe enough. She sent it through, adding _“just enjoying a little me time :)”_ She bit her lip as she waited for a reply, not wanting to put down the phone until she got one so she could be submerged and not flail around for the towel to pick it back up. But maybe that was a bad idea; Maura was at work, after all, so she wouldn’t necessarily be able to respond right away. Just as Jane was about to set the phone down, she saw the ellipses come up and took a poorly-timed sip of beer. 

_Sorry for the delay, had to nip back into my office. I’m mostly waiting around at this point, so I think I could stand to enjoy a little ‘me’ time as well._

Choking on her drink, Jane carefully set the glass down on the floor. It now seemed incredibly naive to imagine Maura interpreting the text and accompanying picture as anything but a come-on. This would later strike Jane as somewhat funny, because she’d made a point of positioning hers legs under the bubbles in a way that she hoped would be tasteful. Apparently it had read as cheeky, but she didn't have a problem with that. 

She tried angling for a selfie, lowering herself into the water just enough so that the bubbles covered everything lower than her collar, but the lighting wasn’t great and she wasn’t sure whether her expression was lusty or made her look constipated. It was time to concede that maybe she wasn’t very good at this, a point seemingly confirmed when another text from Maura startled her into dropping the phone on her face. Jane recovered clumsily to read: 

_I hope I didn’t misread. Let’s just say you’re not the only one who’s wet._

Jane was trembling, excited, but was wary of the possibility of dropping the phone in the water. Texting in the tub seemed like precarious business. If Maura was in the safe confines of her office, maybe it would be okay to call… 

She picked up after half a ring: “Jane?”

“Is your door locked?” 

“Yes…”

“Are the shades drawn?” She cleared her throat, making up for the fact that her voice had broken on the last word in an attempt to keep it low and husky. 

Maura sounded cautious. “They are.”

Jane did her best to sound sultry rather than anxious. “I’m sorry, did I misread? I can hang up if that would be the kinder thing to do.” 

“No, it’s okay,” Maura said hurriedly, her voice quiet. 

A silence followed that was somehow eternal and deafening as both of them realized they weren’t quite sure how to proceed. This was a new realm for Jane, and Maura had always been the instigator of calls like this in past relationships, and never at work, where she couldn’t help feeling wary that she might in some way be overheard. 

Not wanting to be a creep by just breathing into the phone, Jane decided to just try whatever came to mind and go with it. “I was thinking this bubble bath smelled like you, like your perfume. It feels so intimate to just be soaking in that. Like you’re surrounding me. It smells so good and it feels so good.”

Meanwhile, what Maura felt most was tense. There was the delicious tension of her arousal, spurred on by Jane’s voice, but also the less pleasant tension of being able to hear the murmured voices of her techs uncomfortably near by. Whenever Jane had come to steal a kiss or two at work, generally the morgue had been empty and all activity had stayed above the waist. It was harder for Maura to compartmentalize than she’d thought. Without making the conscious effort to do so, Maura had now turned into the so-called creep because she couldn’t think of anything to say and was just breathing shallowly into the phone. 

Jane tried to work with it. “You sound tense, doctor. I’m sorry I’m not there to rub your… shoulders.” 

It was the first time Jane had ever heard Maura make a sound that she would categorize as a whine. “Jane…”

“Oh, don’t do me like that, Maura,” Jane teased her. “You told me you were wet. What was I supposed to do?” Still no answer. She spread her legs as wide as the narrow tub would allow, and slid her hand between them. A quick intake of breath was involuntary but probably not audible, so she let it back out as a groaned sigh to make sure Maura heard it. “Tell me what I’m supposed to do, while I'm here and you're stuck there.” 

“Are you...?” Maura whispered. 

“Am I what?” 

“Are you touching yourself?” 

This time, Jane drew out a silence on purpose before saying “yes” in the most sultry tone she could muster. Unbeknownst to her, Maura was now half-slumped over her desk, trying to let herself give in. She’d pulled up the hem of her dress slightly and had also tried to spread her legs as much as her desk would allow. She rubbed the inside of her thigh and was already sweating; her arm felt stiff from keeping her phone up to her ear because unlike Jane she did not have the luxury of being able to talk on speaker. 

“It’s not quite enough, though,” Jane said, her voice tight. “Please, Maura, I need you to come.” She felt charged by the once-again audible reaction this garnered. “Come over, I mean. Please, hurry, and get here. I’ll take care of you,” she purred. The only response she got to this was urgent, under-her-breath swearing. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re wearing?”

Maura stood up, having no luck at her desk, and leaned against the wall to hike her dress up a little more. “You don’t remember? You spent long enough trying to slow me down this morning.” 

“All I remember is the necklace I clasped for you, which started the whole damn thing because I had to kiss your neck and your hair smelled so good, and I just couldn’t stop. Then I remember a deep blue pair of…I wanna say kitten heels? Because that’s what I had to focus on keeping you from.”

“Actually,” Maura panted, unable to help herself, “they’re pumps.” 

“…okay, whatever-the-hell they are. The shoes too pretty for you to ditch even though you say they make your feet hurt. They make your ass look incredible. I’m sure you could give me the scientific explanation for why that is, and I’d love to hear it at some point, but not this second.” She waited a beat. “I think you know what I want to hear right now.” 

The four-letter-word she got in return was worth it, even though it was followed immediately by a knock on Maura’s door. Before Jane could think of something smartass to say, the very flustered doctor had hung up on her. She laughed to herself and set the phone back down on the floor. 

She was shocked by what she’d just done, but couldn’t keep a huge grin off her face. _I can’t believe I did that,_ she thought to herself over and over. Jane was way too turned on and way too thrilled about how easy it had been to tease Maura to contemplate the line she had just crossed. Trying to spontaneously be sexy was new and freeing to her, and she wondered if that all constituted the swagger Maura had alluded to. 

Ten minutes later, she looked over the side of the tub to read a text that had just come in: _leaving now._

When Maura arrived (letting herself in with the key Jane had given her), she started taking off her coat before she’d managed to shut the door and half-yelled “why did you get dressed?!” loudly enough for several people in the hallway to hear her. 

Jane was stretched out on the couch looking far too calm for Maura’s liking, a cocky grin on her face. She didn’t think an old jersey and gym shorts qualified too much as getting dressed, and asked, “did you expect me to open the door naked?” 

“In a towel, maybe,” Maura said, all but throwing her coat onto a hook by the door. “Now, please don’t arrest me for speeding, but I—”

“Speeding?” Jane asked, standing up. “Maura, are you telling me you’ve been…” _Nope. God. Nope, can’t say “naughty.” I just can’t. Ask if she’s been a bad girl. Ew! No. Not that either, you can't pull that off. Whoops. Inappropriately long, unsexy silence._ “…bad?” 

Maura looked for a moment like she didn’t know how to take that, then said, “I’m sorry, do I look like someone who has time for foreplay? Help me with this zipper.” 

Walking at a normal pace, Jane seemed to be taking her sweet time to Maura, who impatiently got down to undo the ankle straps of her shoes. This image inspired another surge of spontaneity in Jane. 

“Wait, stop,” she said. It was quiet, not a command, and got Maura’s attention at once. “Stand up.” Maura slowly stood, and Jane could’ve sworn she looked like she was vibrating. “When I was bathing and I couldn’t remember your outfit, all I could picture was you in those shoes, and that necklace. They’re gonna stay.” Her confidence wavered slightly as Maura still just stared at her, and after what felt like a lengthy silence due to the frenetic pace Maura had established, Jane said, “I mean, I’d like them to stay. If that’s okay with you.” 

In all the intimate moments they’d shared compressed into a relative few days’ time, this was the first instance Jane could recall making Maura blush. 

As if to make up for the precious seconds she’d just taken for a pause, Maura whipped around and indicated for Jane to unzip her. Possessing an enviable calm, Jane took gentle hold of the zipper but didn’t pull down just yet. Instead, with her other hand on Maura’s waist, she guided Maura just a few steps over to the wall. While doing this, Jane had thought she’d sound off some kind of sexy monologue or something, but with Maura right in front of her, her mind was blank.

All that came out of her was a whispered “just be patient,” again given and received as a request rather than a demand. Jane could feel Maura’s body trembling as she slowly undid the zipper, which stopped at the small of her back. Jane undid the clasp of Maura’s bra, but when Maura tried to shift out of it, Jane softly held Maura’s shoulders in place. Jane took off her own shirt, and wearing nothing underneath, pressed herself against Maura’s bared back. She reached into Maura’s dress, caressing her waist.

“You’re so warm,” she whispered into Maura’s ear. She kissed her neck, then moved one hand up to grab Maura’s breast, squeezing it hard. “I mean, you’re so hot, Maura.” 

These mere observations were enough to make Maura’s head limply fall against the wall. Jane was now helping her out of the dress, and knowing that Maura was allergic to the threat of wrinkles, Jane thoughtfully stepped aside to drape it over the nearby recliner. When she turned around, Maura had let her bra slip to the floor. They were facing each other now, and seeing Jane’s stunned expression, Maura tried to fend off a grin as she turned back to face the wall like a kid who’d been caught trying to cheat at hide-and-seek.

“I’m sorry, I forgot,” she said. 

“That’s not why I was looking at you like that,” Jane chuckled. When she made no move to come over, Maura glanced her way questioningly. “It’s just, um, sorry I’m not trying to be withholding, either. But you are standing in my apartment, topless, with heels on.” She walked back to Maura, looking incredibly pleased with herself for having devised this scenario, and pleased that Maura looked as turned on by it as she felt. “The second I start taking that for granted, please slap me upside the head.”

Being taken for granted was about the last thing Maura detected in Jane’s heated gaze. “Are we doing this here?” she asked, followed by an unspoken _please._

Gesturing for her to turn around and face the wall again, Jane nodded. She came to stand behind Maura, resting her arm on the wall over Maura’s shoulder with a casual air. 

“So you couldn’t do it, huh?” 

“Do what?” Maura asked, confused.

“You couldn’t bring yourself to get off at work.” 

Maura pursed her lips, antsy to get back at it but following Jane’s game. “I wanted to so badly, but I couldn’t get past the mental block without you there to distract me in person.”

“Oh, I think I distracted you just fine,” Jane said, smirking as she trailed her hand along Maura’s waist. “I’m really impressed with your resolve, because I couldn’t wait.” 

“I figured,” Maura said, attempting a laugh that came out as more of a desperate pant. “You’re so calm, you must be satiated. Must’ve been a nice bath.”

“Couldn’t quite do it in the bath,” Jane said. “I understand why that appeals to some people, but for me it’s like—you know how people say that you can only appreciate happiness if you know what sadness is?” 

“Yes…”

“I like to think of this as the same general principle. Since I know what’s dry,” she said, running her hand up Maura’s thigh, “I can really appreciate what’s _wet._ ” To coincide with the last word, she let her fingers graze the apex of Maura’s thighs, then immediately kissed her neck. 

Maura’s voice was a weak whisper, and the words were rushed out in one quick breath: “Jane, touch me.” 

“I want to, I really want to,” she muttered. She traced her tongue along the shell of Maura’s ear, then left a kiss behind it. “But I want to see what you might’ve tried to do when I wasn’t there. That’s what got me most worked up when I was in the bath—imagining you doing the same thing, thinking of me.” Another kiss behind Maura’s ear, this time a little harder. “Show me?” 

Maura slid her hand beneath her waistband and gasped, although not at all surprised by the slickness she found there. She writhed, arching back into Jane as well as she could. Jane rolled her hips in response, trying to get as much pressure as possible, and Maura moaned. When Maura spread her legs a little wider, the sound of her heels on the floor turned Jane on even more; her nipples were hard and it felt amazing to press them against Maura’s back, which gave her the idea to reach around and grab hold of Maura’s breasts. This unexpected pleasure, combined with her own hand’s movements and the tension she had been building on for over half an hour, sent Maura climaxing almost at once. 

She was winded and unsteady on her feet, barely able to stand even with Jane’s help. Jane had shifted her hands down to Maura’s hips to help keep her steady, kissing her neck.

“God, I love you,” Jane murmured. 

Maura reached behind her to blindly caress Jane’s hair. “I love you, too, Jane,” she managed between deep breaths. 

“Oh. That’s very sweet but I was talking to your tits.” 

That gave Maura the energy to turn around, and the hair sticking to her sweaty face made Jane second guess the decision to have done this while Maura’s back was to her. There was a look of exasperated affection on her face.

“I think I’d punch a guy in the nose if that was the first thing he said to me after doing that to me,” Maura said, partly joking. 

Jane’s grin couldn’t be subsided. “Good thing I’m not a dude, then.”

“I suppose I’ll have to settle for this instead.”

Maura gave Jane’s chest a half-hearted smack, but considering how sensitive it still felt, Jane reacted with amused shock. “You punched my boob!” 

“I flicked your tit, calm down.” Jane pulled an exaggerated frown and rubbed the hurt area, prompting Maura to say, “Should I apologize for not ogling you when you stopped to ogle me? I don’t want you to think I take your form for granted.” 

“No, I don’t feel that way,” Jane said. “If I’d been as keyed up as you, I don’t know that I would’ve taken a second to look, either.” Maura looked exhausted, and Jane couldn’t fight a smile. “I was gonna offer to do more for you, but you look wiped.” 

“All that built-up tension has taken its toll,” Maura said with a weary laugh. “Mm… I really need a shower. Care to join me?” The notion was an enticing one, but Jane could all too easily picture herself slipping on a bar of soap and decimating any cred she might’ve scored tonight. Maybe if she got a bath mat someday. Maura was able to read the meaning behind the soft smile. “Walk me over, at least. I think it’s kind of cruel, you know. I waited all the way until I got home just to let you ‘take care of me,’ as you promised on the phone, only to have you make me do it myself anyway.” 

Jane had to laugh at the truthfulness of this observation. “You gonna tell me you didn’t enjoy that?” 

“No,” Maura admitted with a radiant smile. “But I wouldn’t mind a little extra help from you.”

They’d reached the bathroom, which Jane could’ve figured out even with her eyes closed because of how Maura’s shoes sounded on the tile. “I hope you think of tonight every time you go to reach for those heels,” she said. 

“I’ll never look at them the same way again.”

Jane got down on her knees to undo the ankle strap of the shoes, but to keep them on just a moment longer, she tugged down on Maura’s underwear instead. Maura stepped out of them, and Jane got to work undoing the tiny strap on the right shoe. She’d only just begun this effort when Maura gently hooked her left leg over Jane’s shoulder. Jane looked up at her inquisitively, to see Maura just raising her eyebrows with a hopeful grin. It was the lip bite that did Jane in. This was easily the fastest she had ever been turned on, which distracted her from pondering the fact that she’d never done what Maura was asking her to do. She shifted her position slightly, making it easier to slip her hand down her shorts, and as she felt herself she kissed the inside of Maura’s thigh. 

Just feeling the first exhalation took Maura’s own breath away, and it was a second too late that she realized she shouldn’t have asked Jane to do this while she only had one high heel to balance on. She groped for the nearby towel rung to keep herself steady, but wound up just grasping the towel, banging her hand painfully against the metal bar as she corrected the mistake. Almost as soon as she’d faltered, Jane had shot up to make sure she was okay. 

“Dammit,” Jane said, as they both tried and failed to contain their laughter and Maura shook her wounded hand. “I should’ve known better than to try pressing my luck.” 

The fantasy of the moment was gone, or at least partially gone—Maura took Jane’s hand and brought it between her legs, then shifted her own between Jane’s. Neither of them took very long, and a frenzied kiss soon turned slow and blissful. 

“Okay,” Maura groaned. “I really do need to get out of these shoes. They’re killing me.” 

Jane stepped back to allow her to do this, and said, “Hey, didn’t you tell me you wouldn’t do it in a bathroom?”

“I meant a bathroom at work, or any other public venue,” Maura clarified, straightening up and handing the shoes to Jane. “And definitely not in high heels, at least not for a while. It’s okay,” she said, when Jane looked sorry for causing her any discomfort. “You know I’m forthcoming, and that if it was a real problem, I’d have said something sooner. I’m a little sore, but it’ll be a good reminder of things to come.” She pulled Jane in for a quick kiss. “Now I’m sorry, but I have to revoke the invitation I made which you already turned down because if you got in this shower with me, I wouldn’t get any cleaning done and I’m even more exhausted than I was before.”

“That’s okay,” Jane chuckled. “I’ll leave some clothes out for you.”

“Thanks, sweetheart. I love you and your tits.” 

When Maura got out of the shower and into the tank top and shorts that had been left for her, Jane was in bed trying to read. “Okay,” she drawled, giving Maura the most _“really?”_ look possible as the doctor walked in. “I noticed you’ve been leaving your scientific journals here to read, which is cool because I love that you’re feeling more at home here, but seriously.” She flourished the one she was holding, and Maura laughed. “The American Journal of Potato Research?! Is this real, or was this an elaborate Photoshop prank you made up to test if I was paying attention to what you like to read in your downtime?” 

“It’s real!” Maura insisted, taking the magazine out of Jane’s hand and tossing it on the nightstand. “The Potato Association of America is doing fascinating work in—”

“Potato science,” Jane giggled.

“You say that like it’s so ridiculous.”

“Maura, come on. _Potato. Science._ ”

“How can you lie there and act like ‘potato science’ is the strangest phrase you’ve ever heard when earlier tonight you and Tommy spent twenty minutes trying to convince me that there was a movie called _The Brave Little Toaster?_ ” Maura asked, enunciating each individual word of the title. “With a sequel about going to Mars?” 

“It’s a real movie!” 

“I’m almost entirely certain you made up that Wikipedia page.”

“Why would I make up a movie about suicidal household appliances?!” Jane laughed incredulously. “Sheesh, you try to open up to a person about what caused joint sibling trauma. I’ve been afraid of air conditioners ever since.” 

“Aw, I’m sorry,” Maura said, reaching over to pull Jane to her side. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah,” Jane yawned. “Thanks for a really kickass evening, though. Was there enough swagger for you?” She snuggled closer as Maura murmured her assent. After a few minutes, in which time she thought Maura might’ve drifted off, she whispered, “Can I just say something, though?” 

Maura kissed her forehead, stroking Jane’s arm. “Of course, what is it?”

This was good for her, improving on her former policies of being someone who showed rather than told. “That was so fun. But the first night we got together, I was thinking about how what I love about you, about being with you, is that I can drop all that. The swagger. I gotta walk into a room at work like I own the place because that’s always been the only way I’ve had a shot at being taken seriously. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind owning that I’m a badass. But with you, it’s like… I don't _have_ to do that, and that's really a gif. Sometimes it feels like I forget who I am on my own, like who I really am. It gets lost in my mom’s meddling and the pressure from work and just wanting to be perceived as someone who can handle all of it all the time, no problem. When I’m with you, I can drop all that and just be me. Not someone’s daughter or sister or detective or partner. Just me, being just yours. I love who I can be when I’m with you.”

It was an awkward hug, positioned as they were, but Maura did her best. “Thank you for telling me that. Oh, look now who’s the one getting eloquent and who’s the one getting teary-eyed after sex! Goodness. Thank you. And I’m sorry if I made you feel like I…”

“Shh, no, you didn’t make me do anything. I mean, you think _you’re_ forthcoming? C’mon,” Jane said. “I like taking direction from you, but I can take a crack at it now and then. Kinda fun.”

“Make no mistake,” Maura said, kissing her forehead again. “I adore your sweet side and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I love you.”

Jane propped herself up enough for just a moment to kiss Maura’s cheek. “Goodnight, babe. I love you.”

A few moments of silence passed before Maura asked, “So, are you not going to say goodnight to the girls, then?” 

Jane laughed, planting a quick, comic kiss on both of Maura’s breasts. “Honk, honk, ladies. G’night!”


	5. Out and About

"Jane, I want to go out."

"Out where?"

"Out. Together."

They were having lunch in Maura's office, and Jane had casually suggested they spend the evening at her apartment with some good food and a game of chess. Maura didn't sound at all agitated, but Jane was anxious about stepping on a land mine by saying the wrong thing.

"We go out," she said.

Maura sighed. "We go to the Dirty Robber with your brothers and your work partners. Other than that, you come to my house or I go to your apartment. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with you at home, it's only that we never go out, just the two of us. I think that would be nice once in a while."

"Oh," Jane said blankly. There wasn't really a rebuttal for this, a blatant fact. A concern Jane had had early on when she was first debating her feelings for Maura was that if they were to ever start dating, they'd find there wasn't enough shared interests to keep them together. In fact, they were both actively bored by things the other loved. She was such a low-key homebody and Maura liked going to so many high-class things. What if this poked a hole in their beautiful bubble? Trying not to sound wary, Jane asked, "What did you have in mind?"

"It doesn't need to be anything extravagant," Maura said, unsure of why Jane was acting like this was a huge thing to ask. "I mean, it could just be going to dinner."

That seemed doable, and Jane jumped on the safe option at once. "Yeah, okay, let's do it. How's this weekend looking for you?"

Maura bit her lip. "I've got plans for Sunday, but I'm free on Saturday. Or Monday, if that's better."

"Okay, let's pencil it in for Monday. What've you got going on Sunday?"

It had been asked only out of polite curiosity, but it occurred to Maura that maybe she should've brought this up sooner to the person she was dating. "A friend from BCU is going to be in town, and she emailed a bunch of us a while ago to figure out when we could all get together. That's the date that worked best for everyone."

A few long moments passed as Jane tried to figure out how she was supposed to respond to this. Normally she wouldn't think anything of it, but Maura seemed oddly tense, which made her wonder if she was supposed to ask if she could come along and meet Maura's friends. Was she being tested? It wasn't like Maura to be coy, but maybe she was trying to be sensitive. Or maybe she was trying to give Jane an opportunity to prove her investment in their relationship.

"That's nice! Um… can I come?" Jane asked.

"I didn't think you'd want to," Maura said, looking surprised. "You don't know any of them—"

"—I can handle meeting new people, especially if they're friends of yours."

"—and I'm not sure you'd have that much in common. I mean, I think you'd write them off as the stuffy academic type. You'd be bored."

It dawned on Jane what Maura was too polite to say: "Oh, I'm not enough of an intellectual to keep up with 'em, I guess. No, I get it," she said, when Maura tried to protest. "I really do. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to follow, when I can barely follow you sometimes."

"Jane, please don't do that," Maura sighed. "You're an extremely intelligent person, and I'm not going to sit here and listen to you act like I don't think you're smart enough to spend time with my friends. You're one of the most brilliant minds I've ever worked with." (Jane would be flattered, but the bite to Maura's tone implied she was stating a fact just to state a fact, not to be nice.) "It's a different type of intelligence from my friends'."

"What, are you saying they're snooty?"

"Honestly? A little," Maura said, not even recognizing the bait. "Academic types often can't help themselves. Or, well, you've met my mother. It would be like having dinner with the kind of people we met at her opening. I just didn't think you would be comfortable or interested, so I didn't bother asking."

"Look, Maura. You know me probably better than anyone. But that doesn't mean you should jump to conclusions, okay? Ask me next time," Jane pleaded in what she hoped was an encouraging voice. "Maybe I'll surprise you."

They ate in uncomfortable silence for a minute or so, then were spared further awkwardness when Jane got a text from Frost. What he was asking for could wait, but Jane used it as an excuse to take off early, using the white lie that Frost needed her for something. Maura remained in her office, flummoxed by the exchange that had just happened. She'd dealt with a cagey Jane before, but so far not in the short window when they'd been dating. A nerve had obviously been touched, but she didn't know the best way to approach dealing with it.

The work day went on without the occasional check-in text that Jane had gotten accustomed to, and she figured maybe at least this would help make her slightly more productive. When she was ready to call it a day and still hadn't heard from Maura, she supposed she ought to bury the hatchet herself. After spending a couple of minutes trying to craft a suitable text, it occurred to her that the nicer thing to do would probably be talking in person, so she went down to the morgue—but Susie was there to tell her that Maura had just left for the day.

Going without saying goodbye was unusual when they'd only been friends; now, in particular after a passive-aggressive argument, it seemed like an intentional statement. It didn't occur to Jane to think maybe she had overreacted to an unintended slight until later that night when she was boxing at home. She did tend to have a quick temper and was more sensitive than her bravado would lead one to believe. More to the point, though, she knew Maura would never do anything to purposefully hurt her.

After cooling off with a shower, Jane planned to message Maura but saw that she had a missed call and text from her mother:

_"Hi honey! Me and Maura r going to get mani-pedi's after work on Thursday. Want to come?"_

While it was very possible that Angela had foisted this plan on Maura, Jane couldn't help from uncharitably thinking that Maura wanted a breather. They hadn't spent many nights apart since first sleeping together, and when they had, there was usually a long phone call or texting. Jane got ready for bed and was going to hit the lights, but it didn't feel right falling asleep without extending an olive branch first—or trying to, at least.

A text seemed safer as she tried to figure out what tone to strike. Friendly, like no one was at fault, like this was a misunderstanding over nothing: _Hey, just wanted to check in. Make sure everything's all right. Ma just texted and said you're hitting up a salon soon._

Of course the problem with texts is that tone can be very hard to decipher, and Jane was too scared to clarify if Maura was being clipped or just succinct in her reply. The unromantic frankness could indicate that she was annoyed, but could also have just been her usual pragmatic style: **I'm fine, I didn't want to upset you. Don't worry, I have no intention of telling your mother that we've been having sex.**

Jane sighed and just responded with a thumbs up emoji.

The next day was a busy one for them both, with Maura in Cambridge for the day to consult with medical specialists on a case. It wasn't until she was at a red light on her way home that Jane shot her a text: _Been weird not seeing you. Can I come over?_

Another short reply, but this time it was everything Jane had hoped for: **Yes, I've missed you, too.**

From Jane's wording, Maura had assumed she would just want a calm evening in. But when she opened the front door an hour later, Jane was standing there in a dress shirt and slacks—the nicest pair she owned, which Maura had pestered her into buying for events outside of work. Jane looked unsurprised to see that even though she'd been home from work for some time, Maura still might've been about to walk onto a photo shoot.

"Hey, beautiful," Jane said. "I'm here to take you out, if you're free. Just the two of us, for dinner, not to a rowdy bar."

Maura smiled and grabbed her coat. "So, what did you have in mind for our first big night out on the town?"

When Maura put it that way, Jane kind of wished she'd put more time and effort into planning something a little more extravagant. Instead, she'd just tried to think of going someplace for food that Maura would like, which was how she'd come to call Chez Pierre for a reservation earlier. It was a much more expensive restaurant than she would usually patronize, but she'd wanted to take Maura somewhere that was as far as possible from the Dirty Robber in both ambiance and menu. Besides, she could afford an indulgence now and then, and who better to splurge on than Maura?

As they followed the hostess to their table, Jane found herself walking along with her hand on the small of Maura's back. Nobody was paying them any particular attention, but even so, Jane got a sudden appreciation for what Maura had meant about wanting to go out as a couple. She wasn't attacked by feelings of self-consciousness at the thought of people staring at them; in fact, she hoped people _would_ notice them. She hoped the hostess and their waiter and anyone else who walked by would think they were a couple, not just friends. To emphasize this point, Jane went to the trouble of pulling out Maura's chair for her.

"Wow, you weren't kidding when you said you'd be the man in this kind of relationship," Maura said, amused, as she picked up a menu.

Jane's train of thought had been so separate from that, it took her a second to understand what Maura was talking about. "Oh. I just did that because …I dunno, I kinda wanted to communicate that we were here on a date, and that seemed like the best option outside of standing on the table and making an announcement." She worried this might sound cringey, but Maura looked touched and that brightened Jane's spirits. "Now, please don't break up with me when I butcher the pronunciations of everything on this menu. It's been a while since I tried out the ole high school Francois."

" _Francaise._ "

"Oh. Wait, what does Francois mean?"

Maura burst out laughing, not unkindly. "It's a name."

"Ah, but of course," Jane said in her best Inspector Clouseau impersonation.

"As long as you don't talk like that to our waiter, I think we'll be fine," Maura laughed. "I didn't know you studied French in school."

"I only lasted a year before I switched to Spanish. I chose French because that's what my best friend was taking."

"Your _bête noir?_ " Maura asked, affecting a slightly exaggerated accent.

" _Oui, oui!_ And now we've pretty much exhausted all the French I can muster up. Or, wait, I'll try to remember to shout _'mon dieu!'_ the next time we have sex."

This made Maura choke on a sip of water right when their waiter arrived. After a brief confab, Jane decided the safest thing to do was let Maura order drinks and dinner for them both. Left alone at their table once again, Maura reached for Jane's hand and Jane gave it to her without a second thought.

Dinner sailed by, and it felt so good to be out like this together that Jane didn't even pause to wonder what it was she was actually eating. It tasted good and she could make Maura laugh, and that was all that really mattered. When the time came to go, they left the restaurant hand-in-hand and there was a tacit agreement that they'd be going home together. Jane drove them to her apartment, and they were almost there when Maura said out of nowhere,

"I was going to tell you about dinner with my friends. I just wasn't sure what to say about it. In light of the date we just had, maybe it seemed like a silly concern. But I was worried …I mean, I know you like what we've been doing at work, with our colleagues, just sort of letting them draw their own conclusions without making any declarations. But if you came with me to meet my friends, I'd need to introduce you as… well, somebody. And I wasn't sure how you'd feel being…"

She trailed off, looking lost. Jane parked the car and gently prompted her, "How'd you like to introduce me?"

Maura took her hand as they headed into the complex. "I guess I'd just say, 'hello all, I'd like you to meet my girlfriend, Jane Rizzoli.'"

Jane smiled, giving Maura's hand a squeeze. "I think that sounds really nice. I don't want you to think you have to walk on eggshells around me, sweetheart. I don't want us to just clam up when stuff happens, y'know? I'll admit I can sometimes dish it out better than I can take it, but I want you to feel like you can call me out on stuff. Like when I'm being an insecure dick."

"Concerns are different from insecurities," Maura said, as they entered Jane's apartment.

"Yeah, I know," Jane sighed, flopping onto the couch, and Maura followed suit (albeit in a somewhat more dignified manner). "You were maybe kinda right, though, that I'd be… an odd mix with all your brainy friends. And I guess maybe it's a little intimidating dating someone who knows like, everything. You do!" she insisted over Maura's surprised interjection. "Like not just science, I mean art and history and shit like—you just know so many things. It can be hard to keep up now and then."

Maura didn't seem to know how to respond for a long time. "Did I ever tell you about Dr. Nunes?" she finally asked. Jane shook her head, and Maura settled in closer. "Dr. Nunes was my physics teacher in eleventh grade. Really nice woman, wonderful teacher. She was the commencement speaker when I graduated, and I'll never forget what she said. She talked about how she graduated high school and thought to herself, 'I did it! I graduated! I know everything there is to know!' Mm-hm," she said when Jane laughed. "Then she started college and realized 'oh no, I don't know _anything!'_ When she graduated college, then she started thinking, 'okay, now I know it all!' But then she got into advanced degrees programs, and she said by the time she gradated with her PhD, she realized, 'I really don't know a damn thing.'"

"Huh. That's interesting."

"Right? That shocked me. It seemed so backwards. How could a person accrue so many degrees, and with each one, think she knew less and less? Because the more focused you become on being an expert in a given field, you're going to realize two things: one, your specialty by definition will be narrow. Two, there are countless fields outside your realm that you know not the slightest thing about. So, Dr. Nunes gave me a really remarkable gift with that notion. She made me aware that a person's degrees doesn't make them an indisputable genius about everything, and that there's always going to be someone out there who knows more about something than you do—and that's okay. Not only is it okay, it's great! It means the world is operating as it should be. There are plenty of ways to gain expertise in a given subject, academic or not. She also gave me the drive to always be learning. Learning about anything I can, any way I can."

"Is it bad that I don't have that same drive, like to just learn random stuff?" Jane asked. "I mean, do you wish I did?"

"No, it's not bad," Maura said. "I may be trying to be an encyclopedia, but you don't have to. All that matters is learning more about, well, what you're interested in learning more about! Everybody learns differently, and everyone has different areas of interest. You have a knack for studying people in ways that I don't. I can get the technical side of things, but you have an emotional intelligence that's so different from mine and I find that so fascinating."

With a small smile, Jane put her hand on Maura's knee and gave her a kiss. "Thanks, babe." They sat in comfortable silence for a while before Jane mused: "So, what can we learn together? You and me, something new. I've always wanted to get better at Photoshop. Do you know how to use Photoshop? Or what're you thinking, any ideas?"

Maura thought about it for a moment, then said, "I want to go down on you."

Jane's eyebrows shot up. "Excuse me?"

"I'd like to try cunnilingus. You know, oral s—"

"I know what 'going down' means," Jane said hastily. "I—sorry, I thought you were just gonna say like crocheting or something. Whoa."

Maura looked amused. "Well, it's something I'd like to learn how to do, and I think it could be fun for us to figure it out together."

"So…you've never had…?"

"Oh, I've had it done to me with varying success," Maura said. "And of course I've reciprocated. But I've never dated—I've never slept with someone who had a vagina who was interested in letting me do that. What is it?" she asked, tensing at Jane's scrunched-up face.

Jane laughed. "Nothing, sorry, it's just that word. It's so unsexy. _Vagina,_ " she mouthed, when Maura looked unsure. "Which is weird, because the thing itself is so very, very becoming. At least on you."

"I'm rather fond of yours as well," Maura said with a smile. She leaned over to kiss Jane, gripping her leg to pull her closer. They hadn't been making out for very long when Maura's hand slipped between Jane's legs, cupping her. "I'd like to taste it," she whispered, kissing Jane's neck just below her ear. "Is that something you'd like to have me try?"

Jane's breath hitched when Maura's fingers pushed a little harder. "Yeah. Yeah, it is. I…" She paused to catch her breath, and Maura's movements stilled, waiting to hear. "No one's done that for me since I was, uh, about twenty. My first boyfriend."

"Did you like it?"

"No," Jane chuckled. "I mean, neither of us knew what the hell we were doing with like, _anything._ But that especially, like, it was just so um… aggressive and unpleasant. Not in a mean way, like he was just trying hard to make it good for me and I didn't know how to express myself better. I kinda wanted to avoid it after that, not that it was offered very often. But uh, you've been pretty great, so I'm willing to bet that you'll be great at this, too. I'm sure I have a lot more to learn about it than you do."

"Learning by doing is very different than learning by receiving," Maura said, "although I do have a general base to start from, that's true. And you know my ego won't be bruised at all if you tell me to try something else, or ask me to stop, right?"

Jane nodded with a soft smile. "Yeah, I know. You're not gonna be like, keeping notes down there with one hand though, are you?"

"Mm. A tempting thought, but don't worry. My fingers are going to be very much occupied elsewhere." She leaned over for a kiss, miming grabby hands at Jane's chest.

"I swear to God if you say 'honk'—" Jane murmured. Caught, Maura laughed before she could quite get the kiss going, and she pulled back with her hands up in surrender. "Okay," Jane chuckled. "So, this learning thing. Should we like… do you want to try it… tonight?"

Although Maura was pretty upfront about things she'd like to do in bed, it had really only ever come up when they were already there. Maura shrugged with a playful smile, leaving it up to Jane. This was normally where Jane might try cracking a joke, but suggesting that Maura just trip and faceplant into her lap seemed like a bit much.

"I think I'd like to take a shower," Jane said.

"Before and not after? I love that you're always surprising me," Maura said back.

While Jane showered, Maura tied her hair into loose braid to ensure it stayed out of her face. Jane wound up taking long enough that it occurred to Maura she probably could've done something a little more elaborate. When Jane finally surfaced, it was to see Maura lying on top of the bed in nothing but an open robe. Maura glanced over and clicked her tongue.

"Are you still mad that I don't just waltz out of bathrooms butt naked?" Jane chuckled. She got into bed wearing just a tank top and underwear. "I'm sorry! It just feels weird to me to leave a room without like, _anything_ on at all."

"I understand," Maura said in a lofty voice, putting her phone on the nightstand. She rolled back over to wrap herself around Jane, breathing in deep. "Mmmm, you smell so nice. Vanilla—that's the shaving cream you use, right?"

"Um, stalker."

Maura sat up. "Did you shave your pubic hair?"

" _Maura!_ " Jane groaned, laughing and covering her face. "Please don't use that word—well, ever, but especially when you're trying to turn me on. That's point number two on unsexy lingo bingo."

"Which word, shave?"

Jane peeked out from her hands to see Maura failing to suppress a grin. "Oh, you're getting funny, Dr. Isles. And for what it's worth, I was shaving my _legs_ because… well, I dunno, I thought that'd maybe feel nice f-for you, if you were down there. And… okay I did trim a little," she added under her breath.

Maura lay down again, taking Jane's hand. "That's very thoughtful of you. For the record, though, I've always found your legs really sexy, no matter how shaved they are."

To emphasize this, she pulled Jane's leg to drape over her, and started rubbing it. The wording got Jane to think about something that had been on her mind for a while. "'Always,' huh?" _Don't be shy, it's a natural question to ask and she won't mind._ "When did you first know…I mean, was that a figure of speech, or when did you first feel um, attracted to me? Like, physically attracted to me?"

She was a little embarrassed to ask such a question so bluntly, but was too curious to censor herself. Maura frowned thoughtfully. "Well, the first time I ever saw you I thought you were stunning."

"Whoa, really? But in that moment, were you like, 'wow I'd love to put my face between her legs one day?'"

Maura laughed. "Oh, your way with words is so romantic. Hm… honestly, I don't think I could pinpoint a moment for you. Everything between us has always felt so gradual. I'm not really sure I could tell you when thoughts of 'oh, she's gorgeous' morphed into 'oh, I wish she would hold me.'" Maura smiled when that made Jane squeeze her closer. "I have images flashing through my mind, though. I loved—well, still love—when you wear a button-up, and have a tank top peeping out through the open few buttons. I remember thinking that was so sexy, and wanting to…" She started to laugh at herself. "All right, I guess that is another fantasy I had aside from ripping the shirt open—I kind of wanted to sit on your lap and put my hand there, in the undone section of your button-up while we made out."

Even though Maura had openly admired her appearance plenty of times by this point, it was still thrilling for Jane to hear it in such plain terms. Mimicking Maura's former desires, Jane slipped her hand under Maura's robe, massaging her shoulder and collarbone before moving down to her breast. She brushed Maura's hair away from her neck so she could kiss it, and was turned on even more by the sigh this elicited.

"Sometimes when we'd go on runs," Maura said breathlessly, "you'd wear shorts and that was a really excellent incentive to keep pace with you because if I fell behind, I'd look at your legs and that would get distracting." This comment got an appreciative moan out of Jane as she continued to kiss Maura's neck. She flexed the leg that Maura had draped over her side as the doctor continued: "At first it really was their musculature I was admiring, but you have really… really nice legs."

As she said this, she gripped Jane's thigh, then started working her way down the leg. Jane couldn't contain a gasp when Maura reached the back of her knee. Perceptive as always, Maura asked if Jane liked that, and swirled circular motions into the nook.

"Wait, is this a—a thing?" Jane asked, taken aback by her sensitivity to Maura's touch in a seemingly innocuous place.

"Erogenous zones vary from person to person," Maura explained. She changed her stroke pattern and Jane shivered. "The back of your knee isn't a place just anyone would or could touch. That adds a certain intimacy to it, no?"

"Yes," Jane breathed.

She hooked her leg tighter around Maura, inadvertently squishing Maura's fingers in the process. Jane whispered an earnest apology as Maura laughed and shifted her hand out of the way. A slight sense of urgency started to overtake them, and robes and garments were quickly shed. Jane positioned herself over Maura, but Maura gently rolled her onto her back.

"Can you try to do me a favor?" she asked.

"What?" Jane said, looking forward to the day when she could just promise "anything" instead.

Maura let her fingers glide down Jane's neck and shoulders, before stopping to massage her breast. "Talk to me," she murmured. "I may miss your jokes from time to time, but I pride myself on understanding body language." A claim she substantiated by meeting Jane in a kiss when she craned her neck just the tiniest bit. "Still, I love hearing you."

"Do you mean the dirty talk you mentioned liking…?"

"No. I just meant, tell me what you're feeling. What I make you feel. Sometimes you do," Maura said, dipping to kiss Jane's neck, and starting to shift downwards. "But other times I still feel like you're censoring yourself, and I don't know if it's because you're self-conscious or think it would turn me off, but please don't be shy on my account."

"I didn't take you for the type who needed an ego boost," Jane said with a smirk.

Maura looked up at her, solemn. "That's not what it's for. Like I said, I can read body language well enough. It's just that I find it very arousing when you've turned someone on so much, they can't help but tell you about it. And besides, if I keep moving in the direction I intend to, it will be hard for me to see, so…"

Heat swept up Jane's body, and if she hadn't already been lying down, her imaginings of what was soon to come would've floored her. "You make me feel sexy," she whispered, amazed that this admittance didn't make her laugh at herself. "If I… if I don't always talk, it's because I can't—like, because you've…" A sharp intake of breath interrupted her speech, caused by Maura repositioning herself between Jane's legs.

"Because I've what?" Maura teased her with a wicked smile.

"Fried my brain and I can't think," Jane said with one breath. "And if that doesn't turn you on, I dunno what t-to tell you."

"Turning you on…" Maura leaned up to kiss the underside of Jane's breast, roughly massaging the other. "…really turns me on."

It seemed like Jane blinked and suddenly Maura's head was between her legs. She moved further up the bed to accommodate the position, because Maura wanted to start lower and had found her feet dangling awkwardly off the end of the bed. The laughter should've relaxed Jane, and it did for a moment, but then Maura was kissing the inside of her thigh and she wasn't sure she'd ever be able to breathe again. Then it all came out as a shaky whoosh of air when Maura's fingers gently trailed up Jane's leg, circling around behind her knee.

"Honey?" Maura whispered, and Jane felt her entire body tense up. "Remember to breathe."

" _You_ breathe," was the best retort Jane could come up with.

There wasn't a smart (or dumb) remark to be found, though, when Maura's hands glided up to grasp Jane's hips and she kissed her. Jane's back arched off the bed, and her concern that she wouldn't know what to do with her hands was immediately rectified as they shifted at once to grab Maura's hair. Jane's fingers curled, and Maura moaned, sending a wave of heat rippling through her.

" _Oh—_ "

Jane meant to say more but couldn't form the words; couldn't hardly take breath. All she could do was strain her hips into Maura's face. The silky quality of Maura's hair was usually something Jane loved playing with, but this same aspect was making it hard for her to keep a secure grip on something to anchor herself. Maura seemed to be taking it like a champ, though, moving slowly to temper Jane's sudden movements. Her body didn't feel like her own to control anymore, which was at once freeing and nerve-wracking—and maybe a little embarrassing, like when her legs jerked together like a vise. This got some kind of sound out of Maura, though one of protest or amusement or enjoyment Jane wasn't sure, and she relaxed her legs as best she could.

"Are you okay?" Jane whispered. "Am I—hurting you? Did that hurt?"

Maura paused for a few painfully long seconds to, it seemed, consider the best way to answer. She decided to just go with "mm-mm."

"Wait, was that 'mm-mm' like no, or 'mm-hm' like yes?" Jane panted.

Trying not to sound impatient, Maura propped herself up on her elbows and said, "If it hurt, trust me, I would tell you. Actually, while I'm up though—" She awkwardly leaned over Jane's leg, reaching for the nightstand and missing Jane's squeak of disappointment. "This braid isn't holding up well. I could use a hair tie, do you have any handy?"

"They're all in the bathroom."

Maura seemed to consider this for a moment, then rolled off the bed to dash to the bathroom. Her quick departure left a rush of cool air in her wake, and everything inside Jane felt uncomfortably taut.

"Are you serious?!" Jane whined after her.

"My hair was getting in my mouth, it was very unpleasant!" Maura called back. "Also, not to nag—"

"Don't say 'not to nag' if you're about to nag me!"

"—but you really need to clean your bathroom. Where are the damn hair ties?!"

Jane's insides were curling, and her mind was too warped by cut-off pleasure and sexual frustration to think properly. "In the damn top drawer on the left—I mean, on the right side!"

When Maura came back moments later with her hair pulled into a tight ponytail, Jane had gotten halfway under the sheets and was holding a giant pillow over her head.

"Jane…? This isn't indicative of a sudden interest in asphyxiophilia, is it?"

"In what?" Jane asked, her voice muffled by the pillow.

"Erotic asphyxiation."

A short, aggravated groan preceded Jane's answer. "No! Come on."

Maura sat on the edge of the bed. Considering Jane's tenseness and the fact that she'd elected to cover herself, Maura inferred that she was self-conscious about something. Maybe about how turned on she was, or maybe just about being exposed in a lit room when Maura walked back in. Jane was funny that way sometimes, not really having a problem being undressed with Maura (obviously) but only being comfortable with that nakedness on certain terms. It had also taken a considerable amount of vulnerability, Maura realized, for Jane to give herself over to this and it might've been construed as inconsiderate for her to check out for a second for her own comfort.

"Did I kill the moment?" Maura asked at the same that Jane mumbled "I'm sorry." Maura quickly assured her, "you have nothing to be sorry about. I was thinking I could make that trip fast. I'm sorry."

"You did," Jane sighed, still holding the pillow over her face. "I just don't know how to jump right back into…"

Maura gave her time to make sure she wasn't cutting Jane off, but also didn't want to make her feel like she needed to finish the sentence if she couldn't think of a good way to do so. "Do you want me to try?" she offered softly. "You don't have to do anything if you don't want to, just let me do the work. You can even keep the pillow over your face; heighten your other senses."

Curiosity got Jane to acquiesce.

For mood lighting, Maura switched off the overhead and turned Jane's small nightstand lamp to its dimmest setting. Rather than pull the sheet back slowly, Maura shifted to the bottom of the bed and gave the sheet a sharp tug so it would billow upwards, snapping a rush of cool air down Jane's body. This time the sensation was pleasing rather than a bummer, perhaps because even a short anticipatory build had Jane primed to be excited by anything. Without intending to, she held her breath when she felt Maura settling in again, her fingers tracing delicately along the outside of Jane's leg. She rubbed gentle circles from Jane's shin up to her thigh and back down again, then tenderly lifted Jane's leg over her shoulder. Jane seemed to melt into the bed as Maura continued stroking her leg, kissing her way up the other.

"Babe, that tickles." Jane's voice was soft and clear, and Maura looked up to confirm that the pillow had been set to the side. "I liked watching," she admitted by way of explanation.

Maura smiled. "Well, let's see if you can keep your eyes open."

That was a challenge Jane would've liked to meet if for no other reason than to satisfy her competitive streak, but it proved an impossible one when Maura's tongue touched her again. Maura moaned as Jane's fingers found their way back to her hair again, and the feeling produced by the sound reverberated up through Jane. Maura slid one hand upwards, palming Jane's breast. That was too many livewires crossing at once.

"Okay," Jane panted. "It's too much, it's too much, come up."

Without missing a beat, Maura shifted to accommodate this request by starting a trail of wet kisses up Jane's abdomen. Jane arched her back, squirming to get as close as possible to as much of Maura as possible until their lips met. At Jane's quiet urging, Maura slipped a hand between her legs and made quick work of finishing the job her mouth had started. Jane swore and collapsed back onto her other pillow, trying to catch her breath.

Maura moved a little to the side, enjoying the sight of Jane winding down. She traced shapeless patterns on Jane's stomach, and after a minute or so of peaceful silence, gave her shoulder a light kiss and asked, "was it better than your first time?"

"Oh, honey," Jane chuckled. "It's like—not apples and oranges; apples and something not edible. I don't even know. Wow." As her heartbeat started getting back to a more normal rhythm, it occurred to her to confirm: "Was it, uh, good for you?"

"My jaw aches a little," Maura said, "but I look forward to learning how to refine this particular skill to avoid that in the future."

They indulged in a slow kiss, broken off when Maura pushed some strands of hair away from Jane's forehead and Jane realized how sweaty she was. "Man, you called it though, I should've waited to shower."

"Does that mean we're done?" Maura asked, with an impish grin. "You forgot to say 'mon dieu.'"

Jane rolled on top of her, but seemed to do so only so she could reach Maura's phone on the nightstand. "Damn, I mean mon dieu, you're right, we'd better keep going then! But I gotta set a reminder for you first."

"Hm? To do what?"

"To look up that physics teacher who inspired you to pursue varied postgrad learning. You need find her so I can send her a handwritten thank you card."


	6. Bull Durham

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jane learns to roll with it.

Jane and Frost often liked to go jogging together. Their route was a long loop that started and ended by a duck pond, where they'd usually sit in silence while they enjoyed the ambient sounds of rippling water and flapping wings. They always meant to bring food for the ducks, but never remembered to. Today after their run, Jane absent-mindedly picked small fistfuls of grass as she spent the time trying to strike the perfect casual tone for a question she needed to run by someone, anyone besides Maura.

"So." Good start. The word hung out there, and Frost was looking at her, but she was too self-conscious to look back and pretended that she was fascinated by a mallard floating in place.

"Y…es?"

Dammit. "So have you ever dated a brain?"

He laughed and leaned back on his elbows, and Jane already felt lighter. She should've known she could count on him not to make this hard. "Sure, smart girls are hot, right?"

"Yeah, sure," Jane chuckled. "But like, what about their smart friends? Were you ever worried about impressing them?"

"Nah," he scoffed. Jane glanced over at him, and he flashed his best, brightest smile. "See this?" he asked, pointing to his grin. "I just gotta put this bad boy out there and that's all I need."

"Shut up," she snorted, giving his shoulder a playful shove.

He sat up. "So, Maura invited you to meet some of her friends, huh?"

It was hard to convey how thankful she was that he wasn't asking her to go into detail about the whens and hows of her getting together with Maura; that they could just get right to it. Maybe the best way to communicate her gratitude would be to straightforwardly answer his question without pretending she was surprised he knew what she was talking about. "Well, sort of. I kinda invited myself along."

"Wow, ballsy! I mean, um, ovary…y?" They both cringed. "Why'd you do that?"

Jane shrugged one shoulder. "I didn't want her to think I was… I dunno, I mean I want her to know I'm interested in her friendships, her past. I want her friends to like me. I want to meet her friends, hell. She spends so much time with mine. I just don't want her to be embarrassed me of me being a dumbass while they all talk about like, I dunno, philosophy and modern art and shit."

"You really think she'd be embarrassed, or are you projecting?" Frost guessed, and he took Jane's silence as a confirmation of his suspicion. "You want help? Want to wear an ear piece and I can feed you smart things to add to the conversation, googling as I go?" He grimaced when Jane frowned thoughtfully. "That was a joke."

"Yeah, I know!" Jane said hastily. "I'm not gonna bring you on a date. Well, a sort-of date. With her friends."

"Relax. No ear piece, no tiny camera, no strap."

Jane rolled her eyes. "Oh right, the strap was an option. I'd really win the ladies over with that one."

Frost nudged her, pumping his eyebrows. "Would Maura think it was hot if you were packing?"

Her laugh came out as a groan. "Dude, I'm glad we can talk about relationship stuff but let's not talk about things my girlfriend slash your colleague finds hot, okay?"

"Sorry, didn't mean to overstep."

A new voice joined the conversation, cuing Jane and Frost to turn around: "Oh, don't apologize, Barold. If Jane's friend oversteps, it'll help me feel a little less bad if any of mine do tonight."

Maura had walked up to them, and both stood up with Frost saying, "Aw, come on, we're friends too, aren't we?"

She smiled at him, then pecked Jane on the cheek. "I'm glad you feel that way. You're done earlier than you said you'd be," she added to Jane, referencing a text Jane had sent earlier. "I was going to find a place to meditate here for ten minutes before I drove you home. Would either of you be interested in joining me?"

"You two go ahead," Frost said, clapping Jane's shoulder. "I think she could use the relaxation. I'll catch you guys later." He mouthed good luck to Jane and she flashed him a weary thumbs-up.

Jane wasn't sure how Maura could concentrate on meditating in a park filled with screaming children and nearby loud traffic, but she managed and Jane did the best she could. On the drive back to her apartment, Maura said, "I'm glad you have someone you can talk to about us. Besides me, I mean. I think it's healthy to be able to air thoughts about our relationships without worrying about how the other party in question might react."

"That's a little funny coming from someone who was eavesdropping on the conversation," Jane couldn't help teasing her. "How much of that did you hear?"

Maura laughed. "I wasn't sitting there listening! I essentially made myself known as soon as I saw you, don't worry."

Even if there was a reason for Maura to lie, Jane reasoned she hadn't really said anything to Frost that would've been bad for her to have heard. "So who's your person, then? I mean, have you talked about us to anyone?"

"I mentioned the relationship to my mother and Hope. Hope's asked me a few follow-up questions, and my mother—well, I don't think she was surprised. Actually, I think she just assumed we'd been dating for some time already."

"Well, we kinda were," Jane drawled, reaching over the console to pat Maura's leg. "I guess maybe we were just among the last ones to know."

They'd come to a red light, and Maura leaned over for a quick kiss. "My friends are going to love you. I'm glad you're coming. And I'm glad you have plenty of time to shower before dinner."

"Hey, you're the one who offered to pick me up after a run!"

"I know, how amazing a girlfriend am I?"

"Very. Oh, are you dropping hints? You want me to talk you up to all your friends? I can do that."

And do it she did. Dinner started out smoothly. Jane loved how it felt to walk into a restaurant with Maura's arm tucked through hers, and rather than feel self-conscious when several eyes turned to look at them together, Jane was elated. She was happy to be here with Maura, happy with how it felt to have Maura's hands smoothly navigating her arm and her back as she turned with Jane to greet everyone. Jane was aware of the fact that these women were eying her closely (at least one of them out of prurient interest, it seemed) but she met back the scrutiny with confidence. It did dawn on her that maybe it was odd no one else had brought a significant other, and she had kind of foisted herself on this get-together, but nobody else lived in the area either.

Talk of how she and Maura had met, what Maura was like to work with, and what a thoughtful girlfriend she was got them through the arrival of appetizers. (It also got Jane Maura's hand on her leg, which was a small thrill and difficult to ignore.) Jane didn't like talking about herself much, though, and deftly pivoted the conversation when she found herself on the cusp of being interrogated.

Unfortunately, from there it pivoted farther into scholarly realms Jane was at a loss to partake in. She was good at surreptitious phone checking, and she tried to google a few things that came up so she could contribute but more often than not the discussion had shifted before she could say anything meaningful. She could skate by on some things, but felt tense worrying that Maura was worrying she wasn't having a good time—a notion helped along sometime during the main course, when Maura put her hand on Jane's leg again and quietly asked how she was doing.

"Fine," Jane whispered back. "You?"

"Ehh."

Jane had been so focused on her own discomfort that she hadn't, to her instant shame, been checking on Maura. She didn't think she'd had to; after all, these were Maura's friends, and she was pitching into the conversation frequently and laughing. But looking closer, Jane could see Maura was tense. Maybe some of that old social anxiety was bubbling up, and maybe she was looking for an out. One presented itself soon enough, and quite unexpectedly: at a reference to Susan Sontag, Jane's ears perked up and she blurted out the first thing that had come immediately to mind.

"I believe the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap," she announced with more loudness and declarative confidence than anything she'd said that night, drawing the attention of everyone at the table.

"You what?" asked a stern-looking blonde Maura had introduced as Dr. Young.

Maura was looking at Jane in both surprise and amusement, cuing Jane to go on. "Furthermore, I believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing astro turf and the designated hitter. I believe in the sweet sp—uh, in opening your presents Christmas morning rather than Christmas Eve and I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days."

Nobody really knew what to say to that, and a stunned silence dominated the table until one woman said, "Wait. That sounds familiar. Is that from a movie or something?"

"Yes!" Jane said, enthusiastically pointing at her and almost announcing her as a normal person. "Someone else has seen _Bull Durham_ , thank God." There was some polite murmuring at this explanation, and Jane went on, "I've never actually read Susan Sontag, to be fair. Uh, I'm sure she's great."

This lead to a lot of unsolicited suggestions of essays and other philosophical theorists to read. Amidst the flurry of recommendations, Maura got a text and interrupted. "Oh, it's from Susie," she said loudly to Jane, adding to the others, "the senior criminalist at my lab."

"Is everything okay?" Jane asked.

Maura bit her lip and checked the text again. "It should be, just something I should attend to quickly. Jane, could you—?"

Jane was already standing up. Maura apologized excessively to her friends, made arrangements to Venmo their portion of the bill, and said her goodbyes before all but dragging Jane out of the restaurant.

"What'd Chang s—" She was abruptly cut off when Maura grabbed her by the collar and yanked her down for a kiss. This level of PDA was new, leaving Jane both breathless and self-conscious. "Whoa, what's happening?"

"I'm ready to go. Your place, my place, whichever. No; my place is closer. Let's go."

Jane stared at her. "Did Susie not really text you? Did you lie just now to everybody?"

Already steering Jane towards the car, Maura explained, "just a little. I asked Susie last week to text me in the middle of this dinner party, in case my anxiety reared up and I needed an easy out. You'll notice I didn't even so much as say there was an emergency? I just worded it carefully enough to let people draw their own incorrect conclusions." She showed the text to Jane, which just said _Code 882_. "We made that up instead of a secret password in case someone spied on my phone when the text came in. Clever, no?"

"Very," Jane chuckled, getting into the car. "To be clear, though, are we leaving because you got anxious or because you got horny? 'Cause it kinda seems like you're horny."

"Yes, and I didn't intend to be subtle about it." It was probably for the best that Maura was driving, because it precluded her from being tempted to lunge herself at Jane in the car. She almost seemed to be vibrating, restlessly drumming her fingers on the wheel as she navigated the short ride home. "To be honest, it was maybe a combination of both. It was that movie quote that did it. I've never seen Erin Young make that face," she cackled. "A complete loss for words! Mouth agape!"

Jane would've attributed this more to an elegant woman displaying shock at Jane's bizarre outburst, but she was happy to go along with Maura's interpretation. "Erin, huh? I didn't peg you as the type to have a frenemy."

"Oh! What a clever portmanteau. I suppose it's fitting. She and I had our fair share of academic rivalries, but I always felt like she edged me out because she was a little more, well, socially gracious than I was. She always had the perfect answer for everything, in school or at a party or wherever we were and that could make me quite flustered. It can be hard not to regress back to that second-best feeling sometimes, you know? When you're in the company of someone like Erin? But I've never seen her look so stupefied as she did tonight, and you weren't even trying!"

"Wow, well, I'm really glad I came along then."

There followed a short history of times Maura had felt undercut by this woman, and the small tirade helped keep her occupied for the rest of the drive. The car lurched when she threw into park in the driveway, and she was wrapping up as she led Jane to the front door by the hand.

"Suffice it to say, watching you flummox her was extremely satisfying in a way I never would have anticipated." Maura slammed the door shut and pushed Jane against it, considering for a moment the material of Jane's dressy button-up. "Oh, to hell with it, I'll buy you a new one."

"Wha—"

With no further warning, Maura ripped the shirt open. A button flew in her eye but she didn't let that deter her from pulling Jane into a hungry kiss. The coolness that swept Jane's bared skin was overtaken at once by Maura's body heat when she thrust herself closer. Jane's hands were shaking as she glided them down Maura's sides, lifting the hem of her dress. She wasted no time in slipping her hand between Maura's legs, groaning at the wetness she found there. It seemed to only take moments for Maura to collapse against Jane, trembling and fighting to catch her breath.

"Damn, that's gotta be a record," Jane whispered.

"Don't get cocky," Maura said back. "I've been keyed up all day. And I'm not done."

She slipped out of her shoes and stepped out of her underwear before bringing Jane to the couch. Jane sat down and Maura straddled her at once, making Jane laugh and say, "I'll tell ya, it's great to know all I gotta do to get you worked up is quote baseball movies at the right people."

That wasn't all and Jane had to know that, but the impression was a fair one and Maura went with it. "Oh, yes. Babe, that was…" Maura cleared her throat and said "that was hot" in an impression of Giovanni that was so horrendous it made Jane snort-laugh. In an instant, the goofiness was gone and Maura's hands were stroking her neck, soft but promising carnal potential. "Really, though. Your intensity was very hot."

"I'm not used to you saying stuff like that," Jane said.

"Mmm…should I say it was intensely arousing?" Maura offered, dipping down to give Jane's neck a short kiss. "Can you quote more?"

"From the movie? There's just the beginning of that speech left and I never liked it much. The language always made me uncomfortable, and now that I'm thinking about, it's a little, um, reductive."

"Oh, well you don't have t—"

"Nah, it's okay, I can give it one go through. He goes, 'I believe in the soul, the… cock,'" she said, shifting her leg purposefully between Maura's with a playful grin, and enjoying the effect this seemed to have on her. "'The pussy…'" That was another word she didn't love using, but saying it in a stage whisper as Maura rolled her hips made it more inviting. With a surge of inspiration, Jane reached for the zipper of Maura's dress, pulling it slowly down as she quoted more. "'The small of a woman's back,'" she murmured, dipping her hands beneath Maura's open dress to massage that same area.

That's when it became too much to keep the bit going: extolling the virtues of the hanging curve ball, high fiber, and good scotch would have to wait. Jane met Maura in a voracious kiss as her hands delved lower to cup Maura's ass and draw her closer. Maura pulled up the hem of the dress to lessen its odds of getting torn, but a particularly strong jerk of Jane's leg made her anxious and Maura broke off the kiss to stand up and take off the dress. She draped it over the couch and returned to Jane's lap before she had time to remove her bra, because she'd noticed Jane reaching for her belt and wanted to stop her.

When Jane looked at her questioningly, Maura grinned and said, "I like how this feels."

She rocked against the denim, and Jane nodded her understanding. They resumed kissing and before long, Jane was sweltering in her jeans and long sleeves. Maura was gripping the collar of her undone shirt tightly, as if trying to bring Jane into her as she rode her leg. The few times Jane tried to lean back onto the couch, Maura would pull her closer, trying to get better leverage.

"How's that working out for you?" Jane chuckled.

"It feels so good, but I'm not getting anywhere," Maura panted.

"At least you have _something,_ " Jane said, shifting her leg upwards to give Maura a new sensation.

The point made it through Maura's hazy mind, and she moved her hands to Jane's belt. The clink of the buckle followed by the soft swish of faux leather being shifted had fast become some of Jane's favorite sounds—instantly arousing, a thrilling promise of what was to about to follow. She rolled her hips in anticipation, giving Maura another jolt as she slipped her hand down Jane's pants. The cramped positioning on the couch was not ideal, and it took some amused refiguring until Maura was able to make quick work of getting Jane to come. A few moments' recovery were needed before Jane felt up to returning the favor.

"Can we lie down? That'd make this easier," she whispered.

"Make what easier?"

"What I want to do. Try."

The bashful smile on Jane's face got Maura's interest. "I don't have it in me to move to the bed at the moment. I need you to try whatever it is now, here. So…"

"So I guess we're doin' this on the floor, then," Jane said.

She expected Maura to protest for sanitary reasons if nothing else, but when no such complaints arose, Jane realized there was probably no cleaner carpeting in the world to be found than Maura's. It was soft, almost inviting as they tumbled down and Jane oriented herself on top, with the aim of kissing her way down Maura's body. But as usual, after removing Maura's bra, she found herself pausing to luxuriate attention on Maura's chest.

Maura's breath hitched before she said, "Usually this is a symbiotic element of our sexualities that I enjoy, but…"

"A what?" Jane growled, annoyed that she didn't seem to have turned Maura on enough yet to prevent her from Googlemouthing.

It was something, anyway, that Maura was writhing impatiently underneath her. "Symbiotic, mutually beneficial. I really enjoy breast play, and I think it's safe to say you are what is colloquially referred to as 'a boob man.'"

That made Jane snicker, and she had to shift her head to the side for a moment. She enjoyed the feeling of Maura laughing beneath her, and from this position Jane could hear her rapidly beating heart. "Sorry," she said. "I've just uh, never been called anything like that before. Damn. Never would've thought it'd be fitting, either, but boy I guess when the boot fits…"

"You mean when the _boob_ fits…?" Maura tried.

"Stop, stop saying 'boob," Jane snickered, propping herself up. She took a fleeting moment to appreciate how wonderful this was, that she could be lying over Maura like this and making her laugh—just as she always had, but in such a more intimate way. "It just sounds so weird coming from you. Like if I were to start going on about—I don't even know, some kind of zygo-whatsit glands?"

Maura was still smiling, which helped off-set the implied impatience in her response: "Whatever you want to call it, would you mind continuing your downward trajectory? Unless you'd rather not," she added seriously when it occurred to her.

Jane's grin softened as she leaned up for a quick kiss. "You're sweet. But trust me, I'd rather."

She had been ready to try this some time previously, when Maura had impulsively implied she wanted it but they'd ultimately been foiled by unsteady high heels on bathroom tile. Jane didn't rush resuming her trail of kisses down Maura's body, not just because she wanted to feel and appreciate everything Maura was offering to her but because she was stalling for time. For nerve. There was something about the spontaneity of Maura's initial suggestion that had had Jane ready to give it a shot. But now, knowing how good Maura had been at it and having had time to consider how she herself might go about it, Jane worried about measuring up. Still, instinct hadn't done her wrong yet…

Jane settled herself between Maura's legs, kissing her thigh, immensely gratified as she felt Maura's legs weaken and heard vocal approval of her actions. Maura shifted her hands down to Jane's hair, and the soft sound of dissent was a quick reminder that Jane had a sensitive scalp and was wary of aggressive hair pulling. Jane glanced up and it was well worth the view to see that Maura was palming her breasts.

Jane didn't realize she had said _"oh, fuck"_ out loud until Maura said back, "that's what I'm waiting for, yes."

That was the final push Jane needed. She went in softly, but focused. Her confidence grew as she felt Maura squirm and heard a sharp gasp … but then the confidence withered when she didn't hear anything else. Maura was usually pretty vocal and silence was not encouraging. Desperate not to admit defeat, Jane switched tactics, hoping to find an angle or method that would be more pleasing. Again she was unnerved by the fact that Maura wasn't even saying what she wanted, which had been really helpful at the start of their relationship. Was Jane so far off base that Maura didn't even know what to start suggesting? Jane gently took one of Maura's legs (notably, no longer trembling) and slipped it over her shoulder. This made Maura gasp again, and the welcome sound went off like cannons in Jane's head and offered brief encouragement. But all that followed were short, stifled breaths that seemed to imply Maura was trying to reign in disapproval.

When she at last spoke, her voice was quiet but disappointingly calm: "Jane, could you…"

Jane looked up, frowning at Maura's almost pitying expression. "Yes, whatever it is, I-I'll try, just tell me."

"Just come up."

Jane rested her face on Maura's thigh for a moment, sighed and sat up, immediately leaning against the couch. "Ah, man. I killed it." Her eyes were closed, so she didn't see Maura's look of shock that she'd moved away entirely. Jane rubbed her eyes with another loud sigh of defeat. "Damn it. You were so good at it and I can't even…" Her eyes were still screwed shut, as if not facing visual evidence of her failure would make this less humiliating. The silence, though—none of Maura's normal reassuring or questions—was too excruciating to bear. "I'm sorry. Do you wanna call it? Should I… leave? Should I just go? I can go."

_"What?"_ The sharpness in Maura's tone got Jane's attention. The question was annoying enough, but Maura was further frustrated to see from Jane's expression that she seemed to want permission to run away. Maura propped herself up on her elbows, and Jane supposed it was at least something that she still sounded winded from being worked up. "Are you serious? Why on earth would you think that I'd want you to go?"

"Because!" Why was it that when you were aware you were starting to blush, your skin seemed to work that much harder to call attention to it? "I—I don't know, I messed this up and you weren't liking it—"

"So you want to leave because you're embarrassed? You want to run off because you weren't immediately amazing at a new kind of sexual experience?"

"Well, it sounds stupid when you say it like that."

"That's because it _is_ stupid. You're not a teenager, and you're not _that_ insecure in our relationship, are you?"

It took Jane a moment to answer, and she couldn't help a small laugh after sparing a glance for Maura. "No, I'm not. But I guess I must be insecure on some level because I can't have this conversation with you, looking at you while you're just lying there stark naked."

This was something Maura normally would have teased her about, but it was easy to see this wasn't the time for that. "Come lie next to me, then," she said. She reclined and patted the carpet. Jane hesitated but followed, and took Maura's hand when it was offered. They both stared at the ceiling for a while, until Maura turned her head to look at Jane as she saw her breathing start to relax. "You think you messed up?"

"Uh, kinda seems like I did, yeah."

"I was overstimulated and didn't account for it. There was too much direct pressure to my cl—"

Jane cut her off with a pitiable laugh. "Please, Maura, I feel bad enough already. Don't use clinical talk."

Maura pursed her lips, and made sure to keep her voice calm when she continued: "My point is, nobody 'messed up.' Myriad factors contributed to my being unable to articulate myself well enough to guide you in that moment, as I've done and you've done for me in the past. That was the issue."

"Sure, and I just didn't know what the hell I was doing."

"Well, wasn't that the point of all this? That we were going to learn to figure this out together?" Maura asked. "Learning how to please a partner is a process, a happy one. I know you don't want me to walk on eggshells around you. If I've made you feel like you need to be embarrassed for not getting the hang of something right away, then I've failed you."

Her tone was gentle and not the least bit accusatory, which almost hurt Jane more because it meant Maura felt genuine concern that she had been in the wrong. "No, no, it's not you. Please don't believe that. God, now I'm embarrassed for making this a scene. Geez." Keenly aware of Maura watching her, Jane kept her eyes on the ceiling and let out a short breath. She used to hate feeling that she was being psychoanalyzed when Maura's scrutinizing eyes were trained on her like this, but recently she had come to appreciate it for what it was: loving concern, not judgment. Talking was so much easier now than it used to be. "Honey, I have never felt more secure about anything in my life than I have about being with you. And nothing has ever made me feel as insecure as my… my last relationship." She got a hand squeeze in response, allowing her time to elaborate if she wanted to. "I've had good relationships, Maura. Good experiences. I really have. But that last one, man, it was just such a mess. We never really found a good rhythm. It—I mean, sex—was always kind of stressful, and I could never really enjoy myself because I was worried about making it good for him. And when it wasn't good, he got really upset. At himself, but also at me. Which like, I know it wasn't my fault. And it kind of wasn't fair for him to push me away so much," she added, realizing this was the first time she had actually let herself process all of this.

"Oh, Jane."

Jane looked over at Maura with a rueful smile, before returning her gaze upwards. "Everything's been so easy with you, like I couldn't do anything wrong—including the bedroom stuff, which has been amazing on so many levels. You've made me feel things I didn't know I could, and that includes making me feel like I was, I dunno, a dynamo. I know, it sounds like I have such a huge ego," she chuckled. "But it's true. There's been stuff I had to figure out on the way, but I've never had anything, like... not work for you before. Maybe that's 'cause this is something I can't exactly practice on myself, I dunno," she said, able to laugh at herself again. "But that's not all this is about. It just, wow, that really triggered something there."

They lay in silence for a while, both of them now gazing upwards. Maura freed her hand from Jane's just so she could soothingly trace her fingers along Jane's wrist, her forearm. "You're right, it wasn't fair of him. Making you feel like you had to apologize or run away because he'd get angry if he couldn't—"

"Maura," Jane whispered, shaking her head. She interlocked their fingers again, waiting for Maura to collect herself. "Thank you for the validation. Thank you for loving and respecting me. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's not just luck or that I've got some kind of amazing intuition in bed with you. It's that I'm with the right person. A person I'm comfortable with. A person who is selfless, and doesn't put any expectations on me. That's the kind of person I shouldn't be self-conscious around." She brought Maura's hand up for a kiss. "Sorry for making a scene."

"It's all right," Maura said softly. "I see this as a big marker of progress, actually. The first night we slept together, you said you were better at showing than telling. I'm glad you're getting increasingly comfortable with doing both." Jane murmured her assent as Maura returned the gesture of kissing her hand. "You don't need me to tell you more, do you?" Maura asked in time, her voice tender.

This time when Jane sighed, it was a relaxed sound that came with a smile. Tell me our relationship is about more than sex? Tell me it was inevitable that I was gonna strike out trying something new? Tell me that I'll figure it out and shouldn't be afraid to try it again sometime?

Jane propped herself up on one elbow, turning to face Maura. "The only thing I need you to tell me is what I can do right now to…"

Maura's eyebrows rose. "Yes?" she teased when Jane could only bite her lip and stifle a laugh. "Come on, harness some _Bull Durham_ energy and finish that sentence."

Jane cleared her throat and made her voice a little gruffer than usual: "Tell me what I can do to get you off."

For a moment, from Maura's adoring expression, Jane thought she was just going to say the moment had passed and she'd prefer to cuddle instead. But then Maura pushed Jane onto her back again and it didn't take much after that.

A short time later, Jane was freshly showered and in bed while Maura got ready for bed. She slipped under the sheets while Jane seemed totally absorbed in her phone. "Dare I ask what's grabbed your interest?"

"Only if you don't make fun of me," Jane muttered, still focused on scrolling. She got self-conscious enough to turn off the screen though when Maura inched over to look. "I was doing what you suggested the other day and studying up."

"What?"

"You know, earlier this week when I was like, what's something new you want to learn together? And you were like, oral!" Jane said, adding jazz hands on the last word and getting Maura to laugh. "Usually I just learn by doing and you learn by extensive research, but in this case you learned by doing and I… guess I couldn't just skate by on that this time and wanted to read up. On. Suggestions. For how to please your girlfriend, uh, orally."

"Well first of all, I'm very touched that you want to put in the research—"

"Thank you."

"—but also, I find it kind of funny that talking to you about sex in the privacy of bed can be like prying teeth, and yet you can be out in a public park talking to Frost about a certain surprising purchase with all the casualness of a summer's day."

Jane furrowed her brow. "…what are you talking about?"

Maura propped herself up on her elbow and pecked Jane's cheek with an impish grin. "There's no need to be coy. I heard you talking about it right when I walked up." Jane continued to stare blankly at her. "A-hem. Something about a strap?"

It took Jane a moment to put together what Maura was talking about, and once she did, she burst out laughing and put her face in her hands. "Nooo, oh my gosh, Maura. 'Strap' like a gun. Not—not a strap-on!"

Without a trace of embarrassment, Maura laughed too and leaned back onto the pillows. "Oh, that does make much more sense, on so many levels. Gosh, I'm even worse at comprehending slang than I thought. What a faux pas."

"Babe, that's so cute. But I mean, don't worry about it," Jane said. "In your defense, it is the exact same word. Just—wow, I can't believe you thought I would talk to Frost about that! Before I'd even talk to you? I mean, come on. Honey, please."

Maura latched onto this at once, rolling over on top of Jane. "Does that mean you would talk to me about it?"

"Wha…wow, you're very into this idea, I see."

"Well, I admit I was taken aback when I thought you'd been discussing it with Frost. And then it was a notion I couldn't get out of my head all day. Or all night." She bit her lip. "I'm afraid it may have distracted me a bit at dinner, as well."

Maura's behavior at the restaurant was starting to fall more into place, and the boost to Jane's ego was certainly welcome. "Dang. Well, um, I'd be lying if I said I hadn't entertained the idea myself," she said. "Actually, um, I've kinda thought about it before but just didn't bring it up because I didn't know if that'd be super cliché."

"I don't think all clichés are inherently bad," Maura said. "But even so, I think it'd only be cliché if you never let me wear it."

Jane's eyebrows rose. "Whoa, really?"

Maura gave her a short kiss. "Yes, really. Why are you surprised? Because I'm a… doctor?"

"Pfft, come on. Damn." She waved her phone before putting it on the nightstand. "But maybe one thing at a time, huh? Let's not put the cart before the horse, here."

"Fair," Maura chuckled. "We can put a pin in it for now." She kissed Jane, then rolled off her to snuggle up. "Would you be willing to tell me any insights from your studying?"

Jane shut off the light and put her arm around Maura. "Well, I guess you're gonna be the ultimate judge of whether anything I read was actually helpful. I think I need to read more than the comments left on one Cosmo article, though. I mean, the last one I read suggested practicing with a peach?" she asked, her tone indicating that she wanted Maura's opinion on whether that was brilliant or stupid.

Maura looked skeptical, but said, "Well, that's an interesting thought. Could be a useful jaw exercise. So long as you didn't expect the experience to be identical, hm... worth a try, perhaps."

"Hell, who am I to question what's worked for..." She checked her phone. "Tittyqueen6969, oh, shut up," she laughed as Maura cracked up.

Maura had had to leave early in the morning for an out-of-state conference, but had apparently gotten up with enough time for a quick trip to the grocery store. She was gone before Jane—sleeping in—had woken up, and when she got to the kitchen, she was greeted by a bowl filled with peaches. There was a note next to it: _"enjoy these while I'm gone."_


	7. How Do You Feel?

Jane would've been immediately suspicious anyway if Tommy had just dropped by unannounced, but the fact that he had an open-mouthed grin and was holding a box of doughnuts when she opened the door sent off even more red flags. She was about to just shut the door in his face but Maura had seen him from the couch and offered a warm welcome, allowing him the chance to slip inside.

"What do you need, T?" Jane sighed, shutting the door.

"Nothin'! Can't I just drop in to say hi to my favorite sister and favorite, um, person my sister is dating?"

Jane braced herself for a moment, then realized Tommy's awkwardness came from fumbling over syntax, not over Maura being her girlfriend. She sat herself down on the couch and put her arm around Maura, feeling calmer when Maura touched her leg in response. Tommy sat on the coffee table opposite them, and Jane felt bad that her knee-jerk reaction to him making surprise visits was the assumption that something was wrong or he needed help.

"So I need help," he said, passing Jane a chocolate doughnut.

She sighed instead of issuing an apology for what turned out to be her justified skepticism. "What's up?" she asked, accepting the doughnut and taking a large bite of it.

"Lydia and me are getting married in two weeks and believe it or not, her friends are kinda flaky and she doesn't trust any of them to organize a bachelorette party for her. So she was okay with not havin' one, but I was all, 'babe! You gotta constitutional right to party! I'll pay for it, I'll figure it out!' But then, y'know, we got all this money out for a deejay and decorations and stuff already, and I'm so busy with work—I kinda wondered if maybe you guys would be down for helping me out? I can give you a guest list. Or you can just look at whoever Lydia's following on TikTok. I think they're all friends of hers."

He didn't seem aware that this would be a lot to process at once. "You're getting married in two weeks?!" Jane finally asked through a mouthful of doughnut she'd stopped chewing the moment Tommy had started talking.

Maura shot her a sour look for speaking with her mouth full, but Tommy didn't seem to mind. "Yeah! Cool, right? You know, Ma's kinda been on our case dropping hints and stuff that we oughtta tie the knot and all. She wants it done up right in a church, but that takes time to arrange, and Lydia thought since TJ's birthday is in a couple of weeks it'd be nice if we got married the same day." This actually seemed like an odd choice to Jane, but Maura discreetly elbowed her before she could question it and Tommy went on: "She's gotta friend who's ordained, and we're gonna get married in her backyard."

"Wow. Wow, okay," Jane said. "That's um, that's really great, Tommy. I'm happy for you guys."

"Congratulations!" Maura said brightly. The thrilled look on her face told Jane that she'd never had a close enough friend to ask her to do something like plan a bachelorette party for them. It was her adorable enthusiasm for the idea that won Jane over more than any particular affection she might have for Lydia. "And that's so sweet of you and her to think of us. We'd be happy to organize something."

"Oh," Tommy said, pulling out some loose leaf paper and handing it over to Jane. "I'd kinda been taking notes on stuff she thought would be fun, and have all the info here."

Jane read over the list, which included a suggested venue and date. "So… basically what you're saying is, you just need help paying for it."

"Basically, yeah."

"Well, I still think that's sweet," Maura said as Jane barely refrained from rolling her eyes.

Ever guileless, Tommy was delighted. "Great! Aw, She'll be pumped. She thinks you guys are awesome. When we first started getting kinda serious, you know, she said you guys were the most stable couple she knew and she wanted a relationship just like yours."

Jane frowned and Maura cocked her head. "Did she not know we weren't in a romantic relationship at that point?" Maura asked.

Tommy just laughed. "She refused to believe that. Guess you guys just took a while to catch up to her, huh? Anyway, I should get goin'—I've gotta go hit up Frankie, I need to ask him to help get a bachelor party goin' for me. Something classy, don't worry." His roguish wink en route to the door belied this assurance, though. "Thanks again, sis, you're the best!"

"D'you think if I ate enough of these doughnuts, I could get too sick to go to this party we just agreed to pay for?" Jane asked, browsing the rest of the selection. Maura gave her stomach a hard poke. "Ouch! Come on, Tommy totally stuck us with that. I'll foot the damn bill for the mother of my beloved nephew, but please—" She checked Tommy's list again. "Don't make me go to ladies night at 'What Ales Ya' oh, Lord. Isn't it the maid of honor's job to do all this stuff?"

"We've agreed to help out, and we're both going to go and be supportive. Lydia wants us there as a couple, not me as an ambassador."

Jane mouthed the word bossy, but Maura did not look amused. "Ugh. Fine. It is kind of cute that she thought we've been a couple all this time, I guess." She couldn't fight a smile when Maura gave her a _that's-the-spirit_ kiss on the cheek. Still, she was a little disgruntled and needed to exorcise that somehow. "You up for a game of chess? Loser has to buy the gift for Lydia's bachelorette party."

This was as strong an incentive as any for Jane to win, because she didn't want to be stuck shopping for something for Lydia to wear or use with her brother. It was a tight game, but she managed the rare feat of squeezing a narrow victory. Maura didn't mind losing the bet, though, and when Jane crawled into bed next to her later that night, she was scrolling on her phone perusing gift ideas. Jane caught a glance at the screen and rolled her eyes.

"I don't wanna see what you get Lydia. Just sign my name to it."

"I'm not buying anything for her to wear, if that's what you're concerned about. I don't have her measurements."

"Right, yeah. Okay, d'you think I'm crazy if I don't get the big whoop about lingerie?" She scowled when Maura looked at her as if that was indeed exactly what she thought. "I mean, I guess I don't get why it's so different from regular underwear aside from costing a lot more. You're wearing less clothing either way, aren't you?"

Maura laughed and put her phone away. "Jane, that is such a you thing to say. So utilitarian. Although I don't know what I expected from someone whose entire fashion sense has been self-described as 'I am required to wear clothing in public.' Or," she mused, "maybe this is another instance of you projecting."

"What?"

Maura propped herself up, and Jane didn't love the analytical tone she had taken. "I sit in your lap sometimes. You never sit on mine."

"Because I'm taller than you, Maura."

"Yes, but regardless you've told me before that you don't like lap-sitting. You said it yourself before our job at Merch: if you were in a relationship with a woman, you would be 'the guy.' And while I stand by my belief that that's reductive and clichéd, I think in part you've taken it to heart because you don't like a lot of things that are traditionally ascribed to women in mixed gender relationships. I'm guessing you've never worn lingerie before?"

Jane shut off the light. "Oh ho, look who knows so much! I _have_ worn it, thank you. It was a gift I did not ask for, I did not like how I felt in it or looked in it."

"How did it make you feel?"

"Well, again this was in my most recent relationship so take it with a grain of salt," Jane grunted. "I guess it made me feel kinda phony. Like when I have to wear flowery dresses, I dunno, it just isn't me, and I don't think doing or wearing something designated as sexy means it's automatically gonna be sexy. When I put it on, I felt like he was just seeing it, not me. He was seeing what he wanted, not what I was feeling. It was this weird out-of-body experience. So I guess you're right, I'm projecting because I don't know how women can feel comfortable in that stuff because I never did. I know you have some, and I don't mean to shame you or anything. I've seen some tops in your closet, I mean. And obviously you wouldn't wear it if you didn't like it."

"Hm. The sight didn't excite you though, huh?"

Jane shifted under the covers, snaking her arm around Maura's back. "Actually, I didn't think about it much because it felt like something I wasn't supposed to be seeing," she admitted. Her voice was curious, not insulted, when she asked, "why haven't you worn anything like that for me?"

Their eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dark, but all Maura could tell was that Jane was looking at her. "Well, I suppose I might've put some on that first night we made love if I'd known it was going to head the way it did."

Jane rolled on top of her, giving her neck a playful kiss. "Ah, so it's a seduction technique."

"It can be useful in that regard, yes," Maura laughed. "Or for a special occasion, and I guess we haven't hit one of those yet. You know, like you wouldn't drink champagne every night with dinner. You save it for something special, or just as a nice surprise. Right?"

Rubbing Maura's arm, Jane murmured, "sure, that makes sense. Is it the material you like? Something nicer than cotton? I see lingerie ads and they just make me think of posters my brothers' gross friends had up on their walls in high school."

"Are you gearing up for an 'I hate men' speech?" Maura joked.

"No!" Jane snorted. "I just mean in general it's like, 'oh, you gotta wear makeup or boys won't like you;' 'you gotta stop dressing so mannish or boys won't like you;' 'you gotta wear high heels so boys notice ya—but not so high it makes you taller than them.'" Maura wondered if Jane was conscious of the fact that she'd slipped into an impression of her mother. She dipped back out of it to say, "then I'm supposed to wear uncomfortable, tight-ass underwear for them too?"

Maura patted her arm, and Jane shifted off her. "I'll be honest, I do like it. It makes me feel sexy, and I like seeing the reaction it elicits from my partner. The shopping is fun, too; looking for something you'll feel good in but that you also think your partner would be most aroused by. You think you'd be immune?"

Again, the answer was one Maura felt typified Jane's character. "No," she said, though she sounded doubtful. "It's just like, I find you sexy in anything, so that's not saying much. I'm serious!" she said when Maura scoffed. "You'd be sexy in socks and sandals. You'd be sexy in burlap. You'd be sexy dressed in that Hawaiian T-shirt Dennis Nedry wears the first time we see him in Jurassic Park. As—OH."

"What?"

"Damn, I just realized something I need to see. Holy crap. Next Halloween, please, please dress up as Dr. Sattler from Jurassic Park."

Maura pumped her eyebrows. "You mean as a sexy Dr. Sattler?"

"Yes. Which would consist of replicating the exact costume as is. No like, extra nudity or sneaky lingerie. I'm not saying no thanks to lingerie altogether," she said. "But only as Dr. Isles. Not as Dr. Sattler. Deal?"

Maura pecked her cheek and gave her a solemn handshake. "Deal."

The next day, Lydia sent Jane an effusive burst of texts (rife with bitmojis and sparkling gifs) thanking her for helping Tommy arrange a night out on the town. She also helpfully sent along a much smaller guest list than Tommy had suggested, limiting the attendees to her bridal party. Maura also couldn't resist making a little bit more of an event out of it, and threw a number of dining options at Lydia for a nice dinner before clubbing. Prolonging the evening would not have been Jane's first choice, but Lydia seemed excited by the prospect and that finalized the matter.

That weekend, as they prepared to leave for Lydia's dinner, Jane was buttoning up her shirt when Maura presented her with a long, thin box.

"Last time I saw something like that, a graduation tassel display case was inside," Jane muttered. "Have you been rummaging in the junk my mother scavenged from the house before she moved?"

"No, dear. When I went to the mall to pick up Lydia's party gift, I did a little shopping for myself as well and I picked this up, for you. I have a receipt if you don't like it or don't want it. I won't be offended either way." With that disclaimer, Jane worried she was about to open a thong or something, and her expression relayed both surprise and relief when she found it was a deep red tie instead. Maura continued: "I thought it might look dapper on you and wondered if you'd like it."

"And you were the one getting on me for being clichéd," Jane said. "You don't think this is designating me as the man?"

"Do you remember that old saying used to shame men who ever conceded to their wives? Jokes about who wears the pants? Pants used to be a more gendered clothing article than they are now. You and I both wear them. And now, it's more becoming more common for women to wear ties, as well," Maura said with a shrug. "Like Avril Lavigne."

Jane let out a bark of a laugh. "How'd you even—? I love that that's your first frame of reference. But on brand for you, being about fifteen years behind in pop culture."

Maura scowled. "Okay, what about Diane Keaton?"

"Wow, even fresher. But, point taken I guess."

Maura had googled how to put on a tie, forgetting that Jane was already familiar with the process due to the uniform she wore on formal occasions. It was amazing to Maura how often she was cataloguing Jane's most innocuous actions as being disproportionately attractive, and watching her effortlessly tie the tie went right on the list. Jane checked her reflection in the full-length mirror Maura had insisted on getting her some time ago, trying a couple of poses with her hands in her pockets. Maura didn't like to guess, but Jane's expression seemed to indicate a hesitant interest.

"So, you don't think it makes me look too…"

She floundered, not sure which of the many words flying through her mind was most appropriate to use. None of them seemed to matter, though, when Maura wrapped her arms around her from behind and kissed her cheek. "Too… sexy? Too handsome? Too James Bond if James Bond respected women and drank beer instead of martinis?" She smiled at Jane's adorable laugh. "It doesn't matter what I think about it, though. How do you feel in it?"

"Honestly? I feel kinda cool," Jane said, sounding surprised. "Thanks, babe."

"Oh, I'm so glad you like it! I think I might've tried it myself if this shirt had the proper kind of collar. Maybe next time. For now, come on, let's go show you off."

The best thing about dinner was that at least the food was good. Jane found herself feeling almost as alienated by the conversation here as she had been with Maura's hifalutin friends. But in time Lydia made a genuine effort to connect, and told her friends a number of endearing stories about interactions between TJ and his favorite (only) aunts. Maura was touched to hear herself referred to in this manner for the first time and Jane was grateful that none of Lydia's friends seemed to be making an issue of their relationship.

In fact the only time it really came up was when Maura was waiting for her card to be returned with the check, and Lydia's best friend said, "well, it's very cool of you guys to be supportive of our girl here at the club's Ladies Night. I hope you can have fun."

"Oh, God!" Lydia gasped, smacking her forehead. "I didn't even think of that! Are you guys going to be okay?"

"We're ladies," Jane said blankly, even if that was a word she was not particularly fond of. "It's what, reduced prices for drinks, right? Why would we have a problem with that?"

As it transpired, Ladies Night at What Ales Ya was home not only to cheaper drinks but to very dynamic, buff male dancers in skimpy outfits. It was a toss-up what was worse: the dancers, the house music or the unending tidal wave of shrieking laughter from Lydia's friends. Maura had agreed to be the designated driver so Jane could drink herself into what level stupor she needed to cope with her surroundings, but half a margarita in, Jane knew that level would be fatal so she abstained for the rest of their stay.

"Are you having fun?" Lydia bellowed over the music, well on her way to getting smashed.

A dancer on the bar was thrusting his crotch dangerously close to Jane's face, so she welcomed the opportunity to turn and smile at Lydia. "How could I not be?"

"Don't worry," Maura said cheerfully, leaning over from Jane's other side. "She's going to be very well compensated for coming out with us tonight."

Outside Lydia's line of vision, Maura trailed her hand up Jane's thigh and Jane felt a corresponding thrill up her spine. This was not a transaction that had been discussed or expected, but now more than ever the partying could not end soon enough. Lydia just laughed and said, "my goodness, you two never shut it off! I hope when me and Tommy have been together as long as you have, we'll be just as active in the sack." (Jane put her face in her hands.) "I bet it's nice dating a lady. You could share clothes, and makeup—"

"—we don't," Jane mumbled into her margarita.

"—oh, and you wouldn't get all embarrassed going to buy tampons at the store for your sweetie. Oh my gosh, are you guys synced up? That'd be so cute. I bet you are, right?"

A simple "no" would've sufficed, but monosyllabic answers were about as appealing to Maura as vending machine snacks. "Actually, there's not really been a scientific consensus on that notion because who a person syncs up with seems to be arbitrary. If it were based on daily proximity or sexual attraction, Jane's and my cycles would certainly be synced." And still, a regular person might have stopped there, but Maura's inclination to over-share led her to continue: "As it is, I'm not due to menstruate until the end of the month and Jane will probably begin in, what would you say, five days or so?"

"Oh, my God, Maura!" Jane exclaimed, but she could only laugh as her girlfriend looked at her, all innocent, while absently sticking a ten-dollar bill in the g-string of a dancer twerking in their direction. "Why are you like this!"

"Oh gosh, was that rude to ask? I'm so sorry!" Lydia blubbered, overly emotional in her wasted state.

Though she was assured it was fine and nothing was wrong, Lydia rushed off to the restroom on the verge of tears. Maura made to go after her, but Jane touched her arm to keep her put, nodding at Lydia's maid of honor who'd just run after her. "Hey, why do you know my cycle's schedule better than I do?" Jane asked.

"Because I got tired of having to guess when I should have hygiene products on hand to lend you at home, work, or elsewhere," she answered, and Jane had to laughingly concede the point. "Now that we're dating, though, there are certain advantages to being attuned to when you might be at peak, ah…"

_Ohhh_. "Horniness?" Jane offered bluntly.

Maura's hand had trailed to Jane's knee, and she circled it around to the back with an impish smile. Jane almost fell off the stool before Maura suddenly jumped off her own. "Come dance with me?"

"No, c'mon, you know I don't…"

But Lydia's gaggle of drunken friends had started cheering the moment Maura inched towards the dance floor, some of them running up to join her. Taking another swig of her margarita to fortify herself, Jane hastened over in part due to feeling obligated but also wanting to act as a human shield for Maura's outfit in the likely event that one of Lydia's friends threw up in her proximity. Jane wasn't one for club dancing, but all she really had to do was sway in rhythm to the music as Maura moved energetically against her. It was a little hard for Jane to totally disconnect from the thought of being watched, but Maura seemed to be having no such inhibitions. Whether Maura was dancing like this just to have fun or with the primary notion of getting Jane worked up probably didn't matter, and Jane suspected it was both.

"Come on Jane, where's your swagger?" yelled a bridesmaid, flipping Jane's tie.

That was a little too close for comfort and Jane ducked out of the way. Maura twirled around so her back was to Jane, and Jane's hands at once latched onto her hips. She kissed Maura's neck, getting close enough to whisper in her ear, "where'd you get all this energy? Let's not waste it dancing."

Maura didn't need to be told twice.

Just as they were wondering which of Lydia's friends could best be trusted to relay a farewell to her, the bride-to-be emerged from the restroom arm-in-arm with her friend, both of them looking rather ill.

"Is this what growing old is? I'm like a grandma," Lydia said with the gravitas of a Shakespearean performer. "I just upchucked in the bathroom and I wanna go home."

"Really?" Jane asked, wondering if it was possible to get out of this party early without too much guilt.

"Classic Lyds. I'll take her," said Lydia's designated driver as the other women started chanting "pub crawl!" and conga lined out the door.

Jane could hardly believer her luck at the partying ending so much earlier than she'd anticipated. Maura closed out their tab, and she and Jane pushed their way out of the club and into the cool night air, a refreshing breeze that further energized an already excited Jane. Driving to her apartment, she kept her hand on Maura's thigh, rubbing slow circles at red lights. Maura bit her lip, wondering about the Pavlovian effect this could have on her the next time she was stuck in traffic. Throwing caution to the winds, Maura surreptitiously unbuttoned her pants and at the next red light, dragged Jane's hand upwards. For a brief naïve moment, Jane thought her hand was being lifted away because the stimulation was too much, but then her fingers were brushing lace.

"Holy sh—"

She turned to see a Cheshire grin on Maura's face, but it was too dark to get a good look at much else. Not that Jane didn't try: the light turned green while she was peering over at the small peek an undone button offered, and a honk from an impatient driver made her jump and withdraw her hand so quickly she banged it against the rear view mirror and roof in quick succession. As she whimpered and nursed her fingers, Maura couldn't help laughing a little.

"Aw, did someone hurt herself because she got more excited by lingerie than she expected?" Maura teased her. She took Jane's hand (which stung only a little bit more than her pride) and kissed it. "Which finger hurts the most?" Pulling an exaggerated pout, Jane flexed her index finger. Maura kissed it, then for a few moments, let her lips slip around the tip of Jane's finger. She glanced over to try and gauge a reaction. It seemed telling when Jane gently pulled her hand away so she could grip them both around the steering wheel.

But then she said in a low voice, "Maura, don't do that kind of stuff if you don't want us to end up in an accident."

Both of them kept their hands to themselves for the gratefully short remainder of the ride. Jane could almost feel Maura vibrating behind her as they hurried into the apartment complex, where of course the elevator would be coming down from the top floor. Even knowing it wouldn't help, Jane couldn't resist jamming her thumb repeatedly onto the call button. It seemed the only decent way to release the anxious energy thrumming through her head to toe in the lobby.

Maura's sense of decorum was a tad less subtle: she had her arms wrapped around Jane from behind, in what might've looked like an innocent backwards embrace to a bystander until she rolled her hips forward a little.

"Don't exhaust that pent-up aggression just yet," she murmured. The best Jane could do in response was reign in a groan.

When the elevator finally arrived, Jane only felt a little bad for pressing the "close doors" button even when it looked like someone entering the complex had just gestured for her to hold it. Maura didn't have time to tease her about this before Jane had pressed her against the back wall of the elevator for an aggressive kiss. It wasn't like Jane to launch herself on Maura like this in a semi-public space, and being considered so irresistible was an incredible thrill. They had only gone up two floors, though, when the elevator stopped and the doors opened. Jane flung herself away in time to see an old woman, who looked scandalized, and her husband, who seemed totally unaware of what had been happening.

"Going down?" he asked.

"Not yet," Jane said briskly, and she thought she heard Maura wheeze in laughter. "Sorry!" The old man said something about having pressed the wrong button as the doors closed again. After a moment of awkward silence, Jane and Maura looked at each other and burst out laughing.

"Oh, I feel like a teenager, trying not to get caught," Jane snickered, and she left it at that. She was too turned on at the moment to process what all else that entailed, but in a sense, it felt like Maura was giving her back a bit of youth—of whimsy and overwhelming passion—that Jane had rarely captured.

Once they got to Jane's apartment, Maura asked, "Does this mean I need to take you to more raunchy bachelorette parties?"

"I think everything just kinda heightened after you made that crack about compensation." Jane loosened her tie and threw herself down on the nearest chair, legs spread. "So. Compensate me."

This was the kind of remark and attitude that Maura would've found insufferable from anyone else, but as with many other things, Jane was proving to be a wonderful exception.

Despite the obvious invitation to come over, Maura stayed standing where she was and slowly began to unbutton her top, grinning at Jane's transfixed stare. "Silly me, after your anti-lingerie diatribe I wondered if I was wasting my time buying this. I have to say, though, it was very arousing shopping with you in mind."

She stopped at the last two buttons, and Jane's eyes flicked up to meet hers. "That's not something you just had lying around?"

With an airy laugh, Maura stepped out of her pants, and never before had Jane put so much stock in matching garments. "I think deep down, you're aware that wouldn't have been the case. You know I wanted something new to enjoy with you, something you couldn't resist, and that's what's got you so…" She turned around to smirk at Jane over her shoulder. "Excited."

Were she with anyone else, Jane might've been self-conscious about her reaction—but then, no one but Maura could have elicited this response. The crimson, lace-trimmed lingerie offered much more coverage in the front than the back and Jane had not been prepared. Her exclamation of shock was half-swallowed by a gasp, and as Maura had turned to fold her pants over the sofa she assumed the sound of the kitchen chair scraping against the floor signified that Jane had had a physical as well as verbal reaction. What she hadn't anticipated was turning back around to suddenly find Jane right in front of her, and before she had time for a taunt, Jane had enveloped her in a voracious kiss. Maura stumbled back against the couch, but Jane quickly flipped them around so her roaming hands could get where she wanted them to. She slipped one hand under the waistband to grab Maura's ass, leaving the other to sweep up her back.

"Don't get smug," she said when Maura broke off the kiss with a laugh.

"I think I deserve it," Maura said, a point proven by the fact that Jane's impatient hands couldn't keep still and she had started kissing Maura's neck. "I'm just happy to see your swagger is back."

"Back? Baby, it never left." Her sultry tone of voice morphed into a rather girlish breath, though, when she brought one hand between Maura's legs and grazed the excessively wet fabric. "C'mere, c'mon," she murmured, walking Maura to the bedroom while still trying to kiss her.

This was a little difficult for Maura, whose legs felt about as sturdy as butter. "Even in your desperation, you're sparing me from the couch or a dirty floor, hm?"

"No, it's just that if I play my cards right, you're gonna want to grab my hair so I'm giving you a headboard instead."

They'd reached the bedroom, which was just as well because Maura needed a second to recover from what Jane had just said. Although Jane had gotten increasingly comfortable showing what she wanted in bed, being so confidently vocal about it was still new territory. Jane had gotten on the bed and was taking off her shirt and tie, but when Maura moved to lie down next to her, Jane glanced meaningfully at her underwear and said "no" with a curtness that made Maura's heart pound, "you need to take that off first."

This was the closest Maura had ever come to kicking off her shoes, and she stepped out of the lingerie. Jane was reclining on the bed and when Maura straddled her, Jane grinned and nodded her head back.

Maura raised her eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yes."

"All right, but it won't take much. I'm very sensitive, so go lightly—"

"I know, babe, I will. Let me try."

Maura knelt over Jane's head, and Jane held to her thighs with a strong grasp and deep sigh. The breath that rippled against her stole Maura's own; she gripped the headboard and gasped. Already, Jane got a sense that she had improved. Maura's breathing was shallow and ragged, a desperate, primal sound Jane had never quite elicited from her before. Maura was not shy about dictating what she wanted through the occasional word that managed to slip into an inhale, but mostly through her movements. Jane's own confidence and excitement surged with Maura's obvious enthusiasm, and her own ability to meet Maura's half-worded appeals. Her neck was starting to get a little sore as she strained for the best positioning, but soon Maura froze up and slumped against the wall to catch her breath.

As Maura finally slid back down, she let out the dreamiest sigh Jane had ever heard, melting into a drawled _"ohhhgoddd"_ that ended only because she had pulled Jane into a lazy kiss. In time, she rolled off to curl up next to Jane, resting a hand on her warm stomach. Jane felt high, relaxed, but also very aware that the tension curling inside her wouldn't stay dormant for long. She needed a moment to recuperate, though, and was glad to wrap her arm around Maura, rubbing circles on her back.

"So was that technically a thong?" Jane asked. "Because you didn't strike me as the thong type."

That got a weary chuckle out of Maura. "To be honest, it wouldn't have been my first choice. It's just that I liked the design of the front, and it came as a matching set with this bra, which—"

"—is very nice," Jane murmured, fingering one of the straps.

"—thank you. I chose it because I thought you'd enjoy the easy access. It opens with a clasp in the front."

Jane inhaled sharply. "Daaamn, all right. So. That was good for you, though?"

"No." Maura leaned over to leave a long kiss at the base of Jane's neck. "It was wonderful. Thank you."

"Oh, you are _so_ welcome," Jane said in a posh accent.

Maura propped herself up on her elbow, her hand now slipping under Jane's tank top to trace slow patterns on her stomach. "No, I mean it. I know reading up on ways to sexually please a partner is new ground for you, and I want you to know that I really appreciate the effort you put into it for me. It really…" She leaned over to kiss Jane's cheek, neck, and collarbone, punctuating her thoughts: "really…. really paid off."

"Well, it didn't exactly suck for me, either," Jane teased her.

"Speaking of which…" Maura shifted back up to meet Jane in a slow kiss. "What would you like me to do for you?"

Groaning, Jane pushed herself back up into a sitting position, and Maura leaned over to set some pillows up behind her. Jane rubbed Maura's thighs as she settled over Jane's lap.

"You don't want to finish getting undressed?" Maura asked, lifting Jane's tank over her head.

"Mm-mm." Jane locked her arms around Maura's waist, tugging her a little closer. "All I need is a more _intimate_ look at the _intimate_ apparel you bought with me in mind." She nuzzled Maura's neck, starting a soft trail of kisses that stopped at her cleavage. "Was there anything in particular you hoped it might inspire me to do?"

Maura's answer was precluded by a sharp intake of breath, necessitated when Jane glided her hands up to cup her through the bra. "Plenty. But I thought the polite thing to do would be to let you try first."

Jane was too distracted to get very creative. She kissed Maura's neck, letting her fingers make a more detailed study of the intricate crimson lace. Her thumbs circled the hardening tips, and Maura's hips jerked forward in response. After Jane managed to murmur half a request, Maura groped for Jane's belt and undid it as Jane repeated the trace of kisses down to her chest. She didn't get a chance to do much more for a moment, because Maura had slipped a hand under her briefs and her thoughts short-circuited. Jane froze up, but after delicious waves of tension had rolled over her, she resisted the urge to lie back down.

Instead, she craned her neck up to kiss Maura's lips, deftly undoing the clasp of her bra in the process. The lace skirting Maura's skin at the same time that Jane's hands brushed against her was a heady combination. Jane strengthened her hold, Maura rocked harder against her, and it wasn't long before another orgasm barreled through her. Jane helped Maura shrug off the bra, then gently rolled them over so Maura was on her back, and pressed light kisses to her face. Maura could only offer up a soft moan, eyes closed, awkwardly hooking her arm around Jane's to keep her close.

"I want to take a shower," she whispered. "But my legs are so tired, I don't think I can stand. You need to be on top next time."

"Fair enough," Jane chuckled, tucking Maura's hair behind her ear. "Mm, for a while at that nightclub all I could think about was wanting to go home and wash it all off me. But I just wanna lay with you here for a while, is that okay?"

"Mmm…I'll allow it."

With a quiet laugh, Jane tugged off her slacks and let them fall to the floor. She curled up to spoon Maura, leaving a soft kiss on her shoulder. Perhaps unsurprisingly they both wound up drifting to sleep, with Jane's last thoughts swirling around how happy she was that this simple act—of falling asleep next to Maura, close to her, on purpose—didn't feel old.


End file.
